Today is . . . Tuesday?

Right?

I was away from home only 26 hours, but it sure felt longer. And the office? Downright foreign.

Sunday night, my plane was supposed to leave at 8:30. When I walked to my gate, I saw the departure board said 10:25. !!!!! Our plan was to arrive at the hotel around midnight, so this pushed it to two in the morning. I was feeling tired just thinking about it.

Alaska had another flight to Oakland, supposed to leave at 7:30, but bumped to 9:00. I got on standby, but it was overbooked. My coworker didn't show up at that gate, anyway, so I wouldn't have been able to get onboard even if they called my name.

While waiting out at the North Satellite, my 8:30 flight got bumped to 10:35, and then to 11:20.

All the Alaska flights seemed to be delayed by an hour or more, no matter where they were going. They were short on planes. They were short on crews. They were unprepared, apparently.

The "7:30" flight started boarding, my coworker nowhere in sight, so I headed back to the C Terminal for the gate my ticketed flight was at. My coworker wasn't around (I had the gate desk page him), but they did hand me a $6 meal voucher.

I eventually found my coworker in a bar.

I convinced him to try other flights, try anything to get out of there so we weren't arriving at the hotel at three in the morning. The Sacramento flights were delayed as well, and overbooked, too. One delayed San Francisco flight had a single seat available, but that would do us no good. Southwest also was flying to Oakland, but we'd have to purchase tickets all over again from them since they're not partners with Alaska.

My coworker and I returned to the bar.

The flight was rescheduled to 11:50. The gate was changed.

As we sat at the new gate, they made an announcement that our crew would be arriving "around one." Nobody believed them.

They offered hotel vouchers and rescheduling for flights the next day. Some people took them up on their offer, but not us. Our only options were to wait it out or cancel the trip altogether. I have too much wedding planning stuff to do this week, that I wouldn't have been able to go down anytime other than Sunday-Monday.

The departure board finally switched to say 1:30 a.m. We were now five hours delayed, which meant arriving at our hotel at five in the morning.

Which was exactly what happened. As the sun was lightening the northeastern sky, we arrived at the hotel and checked in. I wasn't too tired when driving. Having a near-empty highway to work with was nice, though.

When we got to the elevator to head up for our two hours' sleep, some businessman exited the elevator, fresh to start his day.

. . .

Coming home, we managed to get on an earlier flight. It was delayed over an hour, but it still got us home earlier than our scheduled flight. Yay.