Coming home: The Bad

All good things must come to an end. And skiing was no exception, well it's the seasons isn't it?There wasn't a leg of my journey that wasn't eventful and the joyous news for you is I'm going to tell you about it! Yay!

So Megann and I had booked flights to leave Denver the same day, but due to airline timetabling constraints these were not around the same time. Mine left at 11.00am and Megann's at 4.00pm. So when we arrived at the airport and saw that mine was now delayed until 12.30pm that meant for bonus time with Megann while she waited with all her stuff to check in for her flight.

Now, I'm a big believer in Kathryn H's travel policy of go as far as you can, as early as you can. And before this I couldn't think of a situation where that doesn't work. If you're travelling on your own (as I usually seem to be), move on to the gate, nothing to see here folks. If you're travelling with someone, on you go, best foot forward. But when you're not travelling with someone but have that someone at the airport too? Well, I believe there was just cause to wait with them.

So tick tock...we camped out near the check in for Megann's flight. Mostly we people watched, but reminisced about our trip. As time went on I kept checking to make sure my flight time hadn't changed, and nada, 12.30pm it was. I had my boarding pass out and as the time reached 10.30am, my original boarding time, something inside of me (I think it was too many episodes of Airport wearing off) made me go up the desk and double check. The conversation went like this:

Me: I just wanted to check that my flight is still delayed.

Airline worker: No, the plane is there and as soon as we have crew we'll be ready to leave.

Me: But it's showing 12.30pm on the screen.

Airline worker: Yes, but we have the plane.

Me: Ok, so I really better go then?

Airline worker: Em, yes.

So cue scenes of me saying the quickest goodbye ever and running through Denver airport. Which, just by the way, isn't your 'left and right gate' type of airport, it has an underground train and everything. Of course the line at security was ridiculous, of course I was put in the slowest line with people in lanes beside me going at twice the speed, and of course my guy wanted to know what Ireland was like at the time of year, 'rainy, ha ha ha, am I set?!'. You daren't raise your voice to a TSA man. I have learnt that the hard way didn't I Atlanta?

Anyway, on the other side of security and train (which I rode while dressing myself from security, there's a classy look) I ran the 14 miles to the gate over moving walkways and pushing small children out of the way, only to discover that, yes you've guessed it, it was still delayed. What time did we board? Oh I'd say around 12.00pm. What time did we take off? 12.30pm.

So what did I do in the interim?

Oh yeah, Panda Express Orange Chicken.

Things were on the up.