Sunday, and it was time for the fun visit to North Carolina to end. We took our time getting going in the morning, and after getting a solid 8 hours' sleep for the first time since last weekend, I felt a lot better. We scored some excellent bagels on the way out of town at a bagelry (was it Brueger's?) near the Biltmore Mansion, and then meandered back towards Charlotte. There were a lot of different ways we could make that journey, but we took the Roads Less Traveled, I think. It was through the hills of Carolina that we went, making a stop in Tryon, NC, for a cool drink (no beer today, please!) and a tour of that friendly little town. "Friendly," indeed. They actually have that on their City Limits signs, "The Friendliest Town in Carolina." While we were waiting to cross a fairly busy street, a car actually stopped and waved us across. There wasn't a pedestrian crossing sign or anything...the driver just was being nice.
That brief walking tour revived me a bit, and then we continued to Charlotte. I got a call on the cell, though, from Delta, and that changed my mood a bit. Seems that they cancelled my scheduled flight from Charlotte to Atlanta. Right then. Grrrrr. They rescheduled me on flights leaving at 6:00am on Monday, arriving Austin at 10:30am, through Cincinnati. Uh, no!
Some muttered expletives later, I got on the phone with friendly Delta representatives while I quickly packed away my guitar in its travel case at Jeff's house. The guy from India was only able to tell me about the Monday flights and couldn't help me figure out a way to get home on Sunday, so he handed me off to someone presumably in this country. After quite a bit of discussion, I made it clear that Monday was far and away my last option. I wanted to try to get home Sunday. He finally was able to get me on a flight out of Charlotte on US Airways, which would arrive at Hartsfield in Atlanta about 20 minutes before my scheduled Delta flight that I had already booked. Even though that would be a tight connection, I was willing to take my chances. Hey, I'm a runner. Surely I could get from one concourse to another in that sort of time frame?
Ah, but it gets better. Jeff and Andy dropped me off at the airport about an hour ahead of my new flight time from Charlotte. I rolled in my guitar in its flight case, along with my other luggage, and joined the long line waiting to check in at US Airways. Charlotte is a big hub for them, maybe even their headquarters airport. I wasn't worrying, yet, because I had plenty of time. After 20 minutes or so, I was the next up, but the gate guy said that I had to be treated specially because of my oversize luggage (the guitar). He asked me my name, and sure enough, found my new reservation. He tagged my bags, including my guitar, and then I discovered, after the bags had disappeared into the luggage carousel, that I only had my ticket to Atlanta. No additional ticket from ATL to Austin. Now, I was alarmed, because my bags were going one way to Atlanta, I had only scant minutes to do anything in ATL, and I also didn't have my connecting flight boarding pass.
I'm afraid that I let some choice expletives fly at this point. Mainly, I was concerned that my bags, including a valuable guitar, were going to hang out in ATL until someone came and stole them. Or, worse yet, they'd be lost forever. Plus, the US Air guy was making noise like I'd have to somehow go all the way over to the Delta kiosks to get my other ticket. Blood pressure rising, I waited as my US Air guy and his supervisor tried to figure out how to reticket my bags (they called down to US Air luggage and allegedly had my bags caught and retagged), and how to get my boarding passes printed. The clock ticking away, I got more and more frustrated. With 25 minutes until my new departure time, I finally had my boarding passes, and I darted off for security. I had time, provided there were no further holdups.
But, of course, there were some of those. The security line wasn't awful, but it was still about 20 minutes to boarding when the TSA lady told me to get in the middle line. Some other guys cut in front in that line, so I decided to go to the shorter line to my right, but she changed us back for some reason. That reason? I had been "randomly selected" for the extra attention treatment. They put me in the clear glass box as they checked my bags with the x-ray machine, and then I had to be wanded, and my bags were hand-checked again and tested for whatever they test for. Now with only 15 minutes to my scheduled departure, I was finally set free. Now, where was gate E18?
Uh, that would be the furthest gate at Charlotte's airport. I ran, I dodged, I ran on people mover sidewalks, I darted down steps, I ran some more, and finally, with less than 10 minutes to departure time, I arrived at my gate. Winded, yes, but just in time to avoid being bumped for standby passengers. I settled in as best as I could on my flight, and tried to relax. I talked music on that flight with my college-aged seatmate, so it wasn't awful. But, I was getting prepared for the sprint through Hartsfield Airport and my 20 minute connection window there. Plus, I was already worried about my luggage making the trip with me.
Miracle of miracles, we got to Atlanta 5 or 10 minutes early, so we got to the gate slightly ahead of time. We all stood up to depart, and things were going okay. Then, a next good thing happened: The flight attendant called out that a military passenger had a 17 minute connection window and needed to get out of the plane's rearmost seats. The people ahead of me parted like the Red Sea, and I took that opportunity to zip out myself, since my connection was about the same. Awesome.
Still, I had just those 20 minutes, and since the ATL-Austin flight was full, I really only had 10 minutes to get to my new gate. That meant getting from Concourse D to Concourse B, quickly. So, it was open field running again, dodging, darting, down an escalator, onto the interterminal underground train. Zip, zip, zip. Bursting out in Concourse B, I ran up the escalator and found my gate was the fourth gate on the left. Panting a little, I got there and saw that the flight was delayed, so I actually had extra time. I had arrived in time to have made my original departure time, though. I made a point of checking in with the gate person, and armed with my clean Delta boarding pass, I made a few calls to tell my peeps that I was getting home tonight. I wouldn't have time for a real dinner, but I grabbed some snacks and gobbled down some quick nourishment while I waited to board.
After all that, that flight was pretty quiet. Except for my worries about my luggage, I at least knew I'd be home more or less on time. I got to Austin about an hour later than scheduled, and made my way down to baggage claim. Uh, no bags. I waited. Still no bags. With the carousel stopped and the oversize luggage belt empty, I checked in with Delta. They, of course, had no record of my bags, but assured me that they'd work with US Air to track my stuff down. Sigh. With visions of hassling and insurance claims in my head, I left the airport and made a rendezvous with Mary Anne and the kids. That worked smoothly, at least.
So, it was a hectic ending to my trip. The much shorter end story is that they found my bags late on Monday, after only four calls to the baggage claim center by me, and they arrived at my door via courier on Tuesday morning. No damage, no nothing, they just took a while to be located and returned to me. There was a happy ending after all! My plans to return to Gazelles on Monday morning were wrecked, but I could deal with that. What a trip! But, I'm still looking forward to going back to Swannanoa in 2007. :-)
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