Kiki and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I made it back to Alabama. It was an exciting trip. Exciting in a bad way.

Thursday morning, my roomie, Maya, and I get in her car to make our way up to Salt Lake. We had plenty of time, or we would have had plenty of time if it hadn't started snowing like nobody's business! So instead, we slowly inch up to the Salt Lake airport. I make it about 45 minutes before my flight left. Still would have been fine if it hadn't been for the computers crashing in the check in line! And I was the person at the front of the line when they crashed! I was so close! So, I stood there for about 15 minutes. Now it's 30 minutes until my flight leaves. I get up to the counter and one of my bags is overweight! Argh!!! I quickly rearrange some stuff between my bags. Finally, I get my bags checked. However, I am still not checked in. They gave me a stupid little paper that informs me I have to check in at the gate. Great. Next is going through security. By this time, I'm feeling panicky. I know I'm going to have to run to my gate like a scene from a Home Alone movie. I rush through security as fast as I can, forgo putting my belt back on, cram my feet into my shoes, almost knock over an old lady in a wheelchair, hope that I haven't dropped anything or left anything behind and make a running start for my gate. Of course, my gate is at the very end of the terminal. When I get there, I'm completely out of breath. 5 minutes until my flight leaves. I made it, right? Wrong. I go up to the gate and the somewhat unhelpful man there tells me that since I'm not checked in, I have to go talk to the person at the desk. I turn around and looked hopelessly at the desk, which has a line of at least 20 people. No possible way I can make it through that line in 5 minutes! I was totally going to miss my flight. Completely panicked at this point, I call Dad and tell him that I'm afraid I'm not going to make it. And I really was afraid I wasn't going to make it. Nevertheless, I get in the line. Some of the nice people around me in the line (whose flights weren't leaving in 4 minutes) tell me to just go up to the front and see if I can cut. Desperate, I do so and a girl informs me that one of the people at the side of the desk is helping a group of people on my flight. So I just hand my paper to that person and she tells me to go ahead and board. Really? It was that simple? Why didn't the guy at the gate tell me that? Dad, of course, is still on the other end of my phone, so he's heard the whole thing. As I walk up the walkway thingy (what are those things called?) into the plane, I tell him that I got on the plane, it's ok, I'm gonna make it after all, etc.

So you'd think all my problems were over, right? Well, they were mostly over. Since I was like, the last person boarding the plane, I had to find a place in the overhead compartment for my carry-on. After much searching, and much whacking people in the head with my ginormous backpack every time I turned around, I find some room for it. Then I find a seat (I was flying Southwest) and promptly give a concussion to the poor guy in the aisle seat while crawling over him.

Needless to say, that was probably my worst airport travelling experience ever.

The rest of the journey was fairly uneventful and calm compared to the first part. I made it to Las Vegas, had a 3 hour layover, got a boarding pass for my connecting flight, then flew to Nashville. Surprisingly, my luggage made it to Nashville even though I checked in late. My brother-in-law, Peter, picked me up and I spent the night at my sister and brother-in-law's. The following day, I got to spend some time with my adorable niece and that evening, my dad and brothers came up and drove me down to Huntsville.

Wow, I've had quite the week!