I Am In Raleigh
Jul. 22nd, 2008 07:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayfurrI am in north Raleigh.
But unlike last November/December, I'm only here for three days.
I was supposed to get here midafternoon yesterday but United Airlines had other ideas. My flight from Vermont to Washington (Dulles) got delayed, and delayed, and delayed, even though the weather on both ends was fine. I understand it was a "crew rest" issue, meaning, United dropped the ball as far as tracking what crews were available where and the crew for our flight wasn't "legal" to fly at the original departure time. So when we landed in Washington they were already closing the doors on my flight from Washington to Raleigh-Durham. I happened to be among the first passengers off my inbound flight and was in perfect position to see my Raleigh flight pulling away from its gate a few doors down from where I stood.
Sigh.
Fortunately, I had realized this was almost certainly going to happen and had told the counter agent in Vermont to check my bags through to Dulles and that I'd pick them up there. Then I'd walked over to the Hertz counter and told them that I wanted to pick up my rental car at Dulles instead of RDU and turn it into a one-way rental. Consequently, when I got to Washington I simply had to go collect my bags, go get my rental car, and start driving.
(Parenthetically, I already knew that in this area of massively oversold flights and standby lists a mile long, the odds of there being another flight that would leave Dulles and get me to Raleigh later the same afternoon were essentially nil, a fact confirmed by the counter agent in Vermont. She said that her system showed that the earliest flight they absolutely could confirm me on at that time was something leaving this morning.)
I won't say I enjoyed the drive. I hadn't gotten enough sleep Sunday night, I guess, and 266 miles of driving, half of it in fairly heavy traffic between Dulles and the point where I-95 and I-85 diverged south of Richmond, wore me out. I guess it would have been better if there had been any radio stations worth listening to or if I'd had an audiobook or satellite radio or something, but as it was, I was seriously bleary the last hour or so of the drive.
Amusingly, when I got to my hotel in north Raleigh and checked email, I found United EasyUpdate messages informing me that my flight from Washington to Raleigh would be leaving at 9:53 PM. I hadn't even bothered to check what flight their automated system would rebook me on when I missed my original flight. I'd known it would be something horrible like that -- a very late night flight or something leaving today.
I fly home Thursday evening. It should be theoretically possible to fly from RDU to Washington and from Washington to Vermont in one evening, but one never knows what plans United may have in store for me.
I wish I had more time down here, but I don't. Both tonight and tomorrow night are pretty much spoken for by the need for me to go visit my sister in Chapel Hill so we can discuss whatever it is we're going to do for my parents' second 50th Wedding Anniversary party, the one coming up at Mountain Lake, Virginia in a couple of weeks. She couldn't make the actual anniversary back in March because her whole family was over in Germany for seven months, so now we've got to do a do-over. Or whatever you want to call it.
But unlike last November/December, I'm only here for three days.
I was supposed to get here midafternoon yesterday but United Airlines had other ideas. My flight from Vermont to Washington (Dulles) got delayed, and delayed, and delayed, even though the weather on both ends was fine. I understand it was a "crew rest" issue, meaning, United dropped the ball as far as tracking what crews were available where and the crew for our flight wasn't "legal" to fly at the original departure time. So when we landed in Washington they were already closing the doors on my flight from Washington to Raleigh-Durham. I happened to be among the first passengers off my inbound flight and was in perfect position to see my Raleigh flight pulling away from its gate a few doors down from where I stood.
Sigh.
Fortunately, I had realized this was almost certainly going to happen and had told the counter agent in Vermont to check my bags through to Dulles and that I'd pick them up there. Then I'd walked over to the Hertz counter and told them that I wanted to pick up my rental car at Dulles instead of RDU and turn it into a one-way rental. Consequently, when I got to Washington I simply had to go collect my bags, go get my rental car, and start driving.
(Parenthetically, I already knew that in this area of massively oversold flights and standby lists a mile long, the odds of there being another flight that would leave Dulles and get me to Raleigh later the same afternoon were essentially nil, a fact confirmed by the counter agent in Vermont. She said that her system showed that the earliest flight they absolutely could confirm me on at that time was something leaving this morning.)
I won't say I enjoyed the drive. I hadn't gotten enough sleep Sunday night, I guess, and 266 miles of driving, half of it in fairly heavy traffic between Dulles and the point where I-95 and I-85 diverged south of Richmond, wore me out. I guess it would have been better if there had been any radio stations worth listening to or if I'd had an audiobook or satellite radio or something, but as it was, I was seriously bleary the last hour or so of the drive.
Amusingly, when I got to my hotel in north Raleigh and checked email, I found United EasyUpdate messages informing me that my flight from Washington to Raleigh would be leaving at 9:53 PM. I hadn't even bothered to check what flight their automated system would rebook me on when I missed my original flight. I'd known it would be something horrible like that -- a very late night flight or something leaving today.
I fly home Thursday evening. It should be theoretically possible to fly from RDU to Washington and from Washington to Vermont in one evening, but one never knows what plans United may have in store for me.
I wish I had more time down here, but I don't. Both tonight and tomorrow night are pretty much spoken for by the need for me to go visit my sister in Chapel Hill so we can discuss whatever it is we're going to do for my parents' second 50th Wedding Anniversary party, the one coming up at Mountain Lake, Virginia in a couple of weeks. She couldn't make the actual anniversary back in March because her whole family was over in Germany for seven months, so now we've got to do a do-over. Or whatever you want to call it.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-23 05:07 am (UTC)But I hope you have a nice time, & a safe trip home.