On February 22, 2014, the Michigan Brewers Guild held the annual Winter Beer Festival in wintery Grand Rapids, MI. Close to 4,000 beer enthusiasts endured cold temperatures and solid 20 mph winds to sample beers from Michigan brewers. It was great fun and this is me at the beer festival. The scarf came in handy Dee...
On with the story...
It all started at the gate in Detroit. The plane was supposed to leave for Denver at 7:50 AM but at 8:00 AM we were informed that the Outhouse, er, Lavatory in the rear was busted! They called the $h_t kickers anonymous, er, the Lavatory Man to add more "Bleach" as the pilot called it. We finally saw a truck labeled Lavatory pull up and heard sucking sounds, etc. At this point, the plane door had been closed and sealed for some time.
All of a sudden, the plane door opened and a woman from the gate area came on the plane, proceeded down the isle and grabbed a man 2 rows behind me and told him police officers were waiting outside the door. She said the pilot didn't want him on the plane. Why you might ask? It turns out he tried to pee while they were working on the lavatory and when the flight attendant told him to sit down, he said he had to pee. He'll be driving to Denver after the nice police officers get done with him.
They finally closed the door again and we began to taxi after a one hour delay. Then the pilot ordered the plane to be deiced. There was no frost or snow on the plane. That delayed us another 20 minutes. Then we taxied to the hold line and the pilot revved the engines up much higher than normal idle and continued to do so for another 10 minutes. What the heck? Did they get too much antifreeze inside the engines? We finally took off over 1.5 hours late.
Oh, the plane was kind of small and the seats were really narrow. A rather large girl sat down in the isle seat of the row in front of me. She ended up having to sit sideways the entire flight. More on her below.
We were just about to Denver when I happened to look up and between the seats I noticed the girl mentioned above with a finger coming out of her nose with...a booger!!!! OMG!!! Where it went I don't know because I needed to look out the window at that point.
We ended up being over 1.5 hours late and as I was walking to my next gate, I heard an announcement that they were looking for someone to give up their seat and would give them a $400 transferable voucher, lunch and dinner and get them on a non-stop flight to their destination at 8 PM that night. It wasn't my flight or my hand would have gone up. Luckily I had a 2.5 hour connection but most other people missed their connecting flights.
I boarded my flight to Calgary and the plane was an Airbus 320. It was a nice plane and looked pretty new. I sat down in my window seat and there was a young Asian man sitting in the middle seat. The plane was almost full when a large man came up to our isle and began to sit down. My eyes started watering from the odor he was giving off. Holy Cow!!! What was with flying today? I opened the air vent above my head full blast and directed it so it would cut off the odor before it got to me. Could I make it 3 more flight hours?
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| Alberta scenery from 36,000 feet |
Well, the views today were spectacular!
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| A mountain peak in Alberta |
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| Canadian Rockies in the distance |
After landing in Calgary, we taxied to the gate BUT there was no one at the gate. The pilot came on and said they told him a truck broke. We sat in the plane for another 20 minutes and finally the plane finished taxiing to the gate and we got off.
After all the excitement I needed a break. Before landing they gave everyone a Customs paper for declaring what you were bringing in. It said "DO NOT BEND" at the bottom. I put it in my passport all flat.
I went through Customs and my face got beat red when the girl asked me why I was coming to Canada. I got tongue tied. All I could think of was "This is my first time to Canada in a long time" and "My company sent me here". Gee whiz! She stamped my paper, gave it back to me and let me pass. I folded the paper up and shoved it in my passport.
Then I found out that after picking up my baggage, I had to go through Customs again and I said to myself, "I'm in big trouble". I noticed that everyone was turning in their flat Customs paper that had been stamped. I pulled my folded Customs paper out and gave it to the girl and said "I'm sorry. It's my first time here in a long time and I thought we were done with that paper. She glared at me, unfolded it, pointed to the words "DO NOT BEND", bent it lengthwise and told me to leave. I left!
On to the car rental place. It turns out they were really low on cars and I had to wait another 15 minutes for a car to be ready. They never offered a map to me and my GPS was buried in my suitcase, which is a pain to open because it has a zipper around 3 sides so I went out to the car (NOT WASHED) and proceeded to leave the airport and drive around for 20 minutes to find a place to eat. I finally found a little shopping center and found a bank there where I was able to change some money over.
Upon coming back to my car, I found a really nice Mercedes 450 parked a foot from my door. He parked 2 feet from the other side so he could get out but left me a foot. Thank you very much! In other parking lots I noticed that everyone parks really close to each other. I don't know why.
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| The Mercedes out my car window |
After that, I opened the darn suitcase and dug out that GPS. I love you GPS! I found the hotel in no time flat. I got settled in and decided to find a restaurant to eat supper. I drove out of the parking lot...and remembered that my GPS was still in the hotel room. This was some day! After driving around for another 30 minutes trying to find a restaurant (there doesn't seem to be too many in this area), I found a Chilis and had a small steak dinner. It was really good!
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| Sirloin Dinner |
Oh, John...too funny. Several flights ago, the security folks who check your ticket asked me where I was going. It took me so by surprise (and I have no idea why) that all I could think of to stammer out was "To see my grandchildren." Was my face red! For the life of me, for several heartbeats, I couldn't even remember what city I was flying to. Have a great visit in Calgary. Hope the flight back is much less eventful.
ReplyDeleteWhat a day! At least you arrived alive and well, (ok, alive :-)
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