The long way home

Our journey home started smoothly.  Bora Bora to Tahiti-check.  Tahiti to LA-check.  LA to Dallas-check.  Dallas to Springfield-flight cancelled.  Not really something you want to hear after 20 hours of travel and very little sleep.  We were told to get in a very long rebooking line and/or call the rebooking phone line.

Both the the other later flights to Springfield for that night were already full but they did offer us seats on a flight to Joplin.  In 19 minutes.  38 gates away.  It was either that or wait until tomorrow and with bad weather moving in tomorrow seemed uncertain (as well as undesirable as we were really just ready to go home).  So we did the whole Hollywood movie sprint through the airport with our carry-on bags and me still in my flip-flops.  Only to find out the plane was delayed and there wasn't even a ticket agent at the gate yet.

After waiting more than an hour we finally got on our way to Joplin.  The bags didn't make it there but they told us they were sent to springfield.  Not a big problem since we had to go get our car anyway.

We took a taxi from the airport to the the satellite office of Jerry's company in Joplin to borrow the company car.  This took an hour as we had to drop off two other people first and then picked up two more people all before our stop.  But we quickly got into the office, found the car keys and headed back out.  To find out the car had a dead battery.

Back into the office where at nearly midnight Jerry was on the phone with his Joplin office contact to find someone to jump the car.  This actually happened pretty quickly and we were on our way to the Springfield airport, where we found out only one of our bags had made it.  We got info for delayed bag tracking and headed over to the park and fly to get our car.  Then on Jerry's work to drop off the company car.  Then to wal-mart because we knew we'd be a lot happier the next day if we had food in the house.  While at wal-mart I tried to call about the bag but the person I got on the phone was not at all helpful.  Of course in my state of exhaustion, hunger, and crankiness I don't know if I was that helpful to her.

Finally we rolled in the driveway around 3:00 AM, before the bad weather anyway.

So, by the numbers that would be: 30 hours of travel, 1 boat, 4 planes, 6 airports, 1 taxi, 2 cars, 1 dead battery, and 1 missing bag.

But we're home, the bag is supposedly going to be delivered this afternoon and I finally got some sleep.