Seattle trip - part 1 -- the flight out

The trip really didnt start out on a good note.

I got to the park and ride relatively easy with plenty of time to make it thru security and the like. That all went smoothly. It was issues with the weather that did us in, so really not the airlines fault. Still very frustrating though. We didnt get to board for an hour due to the ramp being closed with lightening. So we boarded only to find out the ramp was once again closed due to lightening and the baggage handlers couldnt load the luggage(definitely made me thankful I had opted to just take a carryon.

So we are all loaded, the baggage was loaded; we were just waiting for the tower to okay a take off. Then the flight crew and pilot timed out. Now I had not heard of this but I guess due to flight regulations and the like, they no longer could work the airplane. So now we are further delayed while they begin the on call search for a new pilot and flight crew. They eventually make us all get off the plane and our orginal 520 pm flight is now pushed to 930 pm.

Just wait it gets better yet. We board the plane around 930 for a 10 pm flight out. We taxi away from the terminal and everyone breathes a sigh of relief only to find we stop on the runway. Supposedly we are first in line when they release the westbound flights. So we sit on the runway waiting and waiting and waiting. At some point they make us go to an alternate runway to make run for eastbound flights. What happened was a line of thunderstorms from Texas to Iowa and the only open airspace was Minnesota. Thus it was saturated and we had to be sequenced in. We left 7 hrs after our orginal flight time, and finally got in the air at 1230 am. I finally arrived in seattle around 340 am our time, 140 am seattle time. Whew that was an interesting evening.

I tried to think as postively as I could and thought well Im very thankful the children arent here or this would be 10 times worse!! Also discovered expensive airport pizza really isnt that good.

More to come :)

MJ