Blast from the Past — Airport Adventures

The day that Russ & I left for Maui, as we sat in the airport and listened to reports about the snowstorm in Chicago and watched our flight get more and more delayed, it reminded me of our trip to Hawaii in 2005 with some of our friends. Our flight had some problems that day too...

Sometime in 2003 our friend Alisyn was telling us that in 2005 her husband was finally going to have a conference in an interesting place; Oahu. She was going to go with him but was sure she would be so bored while she was there. Immediately Russ & I offered to come with her too keep her entertained. (We are so thoughtful that way!) We were pretty sure we could get enough frequent flier miles to make the trip, and having been to Oahu with Russ's family in 1999 we were very excited at the thought of going again. Friends Sean & Katie were also there with us at that fateful dinner, and quickly decided that they should go too. Katie also offered her mother's (and later her brother's) time share as a place to stay. (She is so thoughtful that way!) And so it was decided.

By the time the trip came we had been anticipating it for 18 months. The venue had been changed from Oahu to the Big Island (time share availability) and I had spent months reading the Big Island Revealed book and planning our trip. In the interim Sean & Katie had moved to Utah, and so this trip was also an opportunity to hang out with them again.

Just a couple of months before we left we had a small hiccup. Alisyn had started teaching strings at a local junior high and was told that she would have to take a national test that was given on only one day. And that day was the second day of our trip. She was pretty stressed thinking that she was going to have to skip our trip because of this test. Then she realized that the test was offered all over the country, and that one of the locations was Honolulu. She decided that she would spend the first day in Honolulu instead of flying right to the Big Island, and take the test there.

Since Ken was already at his conference on Oahu, Russ & I flew out with Alisyn. When we arrived to pick her up she was toting a wheeled carry on plus a backpack filled with huge textbooks to study in preparation for her big test the next day. You know how big college textbooks are--I'll bet she had seven or eight of them at least in there.

I can't remember when the problem started--our flight from RDU must have left late, and our layover in Cincinnati wasn't very long to begin with. What I do remember is the sense of increasing certainty as we approached Cincinnati that we were not, in fact, going to make our connecting flight to Salt Lake City.

Missing a connecting flight is always inconvenient, but this would be more than inconvenient. When we had made our travel reservations it was possible for us to fly non-stop from Cincinnati to Honolulu and then on to the Big Island. Instead we chose to add one more stop to our trip so that we could meet Sean & Katie in SLC and fly with them to Hawaii. We were very invested in that connection in Salt Lake.

We arrived in Cincinnati just a few minutes before our next flight was scheduled to leave. Alisyn and I were poised to run from the plane the moment we landed--figuring that it was worth a mad dash through the airport to try to catch our connecting flight. And run we did. I have no idea how on earth Alisyn managed to run carrying that heavy backpack full of textbooks, but she did. I also had no idea where Russ was behind us, but I thought it was a safe assumption that if I got to the plane on time, I would be able to persuade them not to leave him behind.

Happily, when arrived at the gate (gasping for air) the connecting flight was still there waiting for us and a few other delayed passengers. We collapsed into our seats and it probably took a full half hour before we could breathe normally again.

When we arrived in Salt Lake City we knew that we had a nice long layover there. We decided that since we'd gotten off the plane so fast in Cincinnati we should relax and take our time, so we sat and sat and sat, and got off the plane last.

Little did we know that Sean and Katie had already arrived at the airport and instead of just going to the gate for the Oahu flight, had come to meet our plane. The gate agent had looked at the information from Cincinnati, seen how late our flight from NC was arriving, and told them that she really didn't think that we had made the connecting flight. As they watched more and more people come off the plane and didn't see us, they had begun to worry that we really hadn't made it.

So we were all surprised and happy to see each other when we finally did get off the plane. Sean & Katie were holding a fun "Welcome Home" poster with all of our names on it--Katie is fun that way. I think that Alisyn was the most surprised. She kept asking "But how did they get through security???"

Here we all are a few days later...having a great time together.