Let Me Tell You About My Day

So, its 10:25 pm Arizona time on Thursday night. I haven't talked about the vacation at all so far, but I am breaking radio silence to kvetch a little. It's 1:27 am Friday in Pittsburgh. If all had gone as planned I would be in my bed at home, having arrived at Greater Pitt round about 4:00 pm Thursday afternoon.

Needless to say, thats not how it worked out.

We arrived at the airport (OGG) in Maui at something like 8:30 pm Wednesday evening for a flight that was to depart just before 11 pm. The passengers were at the airport, the plane was at the airport, but due to a brush fire between Ma'alena and Lahina the flight crew was not able to get to the airport. So, we sat.

They told us they would hold out hope until 2 am Maui time before canceling our flight. The scheduling depended entirely upon when the road opened and when the flight crew could get to the airport. The road opened this morning around 9 am Maui time. We finally departed Maui at something close to 12:30 pm Thursday - just about time to be missing our connection in Phoenix.

They'd told us before we left that the airline would rebook all of us while the plane was in the air and that we would get new connecting flights upon our arrival in AZ. That didn't happen. Luckily we happened to call the 800 number just prior to leaving Hawaii, and at the moment it looks like we're good to go - not to Pittsburgh, but to Charlotte and then to Pittsburgh, arriving just before 9 am on Friday. That's 17 hours late, and I think we may have done much better than many other people on our flight.

Of course there is the question of our bags...

Still, before we went to the airport what seems like ages ago we started our day with leftover anniversary cake, and then snorkeling at the condo - where we got to swim with a very nice green sea turtle. Then because the fire had everything jammed up we went to the movies and saw Ocean's 13 and then had dinner at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. So even now - taken as an aggregate very long day, it's still probably above average on the whole.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!