We arrived in San Diego without further delay on April 21 and spent the next 5 nights with our Neal/Anna and now 7 week old Geneva in a house that Neal found on vrbo.org (here). It was a wonderful stay, with wonderful weather. We enjoyed a road trip to Riverside on one day to visit some of their friends -- including a friend with newborn triplets -- and visits by some of Anna's family. We also enjoyed a few walks and a nice Easter meal with one of Anna's aunts but mostly just spent time "hanging out" and enjoying Geneva. Some of Deb's daily "blipfotos" were of Geneva including this one (linked here).
On April 26 it came time to get Neal/Anna/Geneva off on their return flights to Williamsburg and then get ourselves home on United flights connecting in San Francisco. It was a simple journey that we've made many times, but this time we would make an amateur traveler's mistake that nearly ruined the end of our journey. You'd think that after traveling 6 flights, many mulitple trains and visiting 4 countries in Europe that we'd not make traveling mistakes -- but the final leg of the trip provided that opportunity. Here is what happened:
Our flight from San Diego to San Francisco went great and as we exited the plane we noted that our connecting flight was going to have a delayed departure from gate 71. We got some lunch and settled in at gate 71 to wait out the couple hours before flight time. Well, we got a little too comfortable. Deb and I enjoyed the passing time reading (I had picked up the story of In-And-Out Burger, my all time favorite burger place that has yet to franchise) and listened for boarding announcements. I guess we got too comfortable because it wasn't until about 20 minutes before flight time that I mentioned to Deb that there seemed to be too few people hanging around the gate and we should double check the monitors. Deb did that and learned that our flight had indeed been moved to another gate and was listed on the monitor as "closed." We hustled to the new gate only to be told that we were too late as we could see the jetway being withdrawn from the aircraft. You can imagine our disappointment.
What followed was a series of miscues by United personnel directing us to various places to try to figure out our options for getting home -- first to a customer service telephone, then to another gate and then to a customer service kiosk -- which we ran between in the hopes that we hadn't lost our chance to get home at a reasonable hour. At the last desk, the woman treated us to some "it's your own fault" kind of lecture -- but then told us to rush to yet another gate for a "possible" standby boarding on another flight to Portland. We rushed to that gate -- where we learned that we MIGHT make the flight if two confirmed passengers did not showup within the next 3 minutes. The representative there also informed us that IF the confirmed passengers showed up, our only alternative would be to take flights connecting in Eugene, Oregon and not arrive at Portland until 10:00pm -- some 6 hours our original expectation. We waited anxiously -- watching for anyone running to catch the flight and were relieved when they "closed" the flight and allowed us to board onto the only two remaining seats. However, it wasn't until the jetway was pulled back and the cabin door closed that we truly relaxed.
Fortunately, this whole episode only delayed our return to Portland by about a half hour because our original flight had been delayed -- and since our luggage went out on the earlier flight and was already waiting for us when we deplaned, we ended up losing no time at all. The whole episode, however, reminded us that while we are pretty seasoned travelers -- we still make mistakes.
Our arrival in Portland was uneventful, thankfully, and we proceeded via Max and bus to our "new" Portland home. And so ended a pretty wonderful 5 week trip.
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