Wherein Randolo relates his misadventures returning to Norcal from Mexico.

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2023 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2023 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

Travel yesterday was a slowly unfolding nightmare. Our scheduled plan was a 5:20 PM flight from Cancun to Den, then a following flight from Den to OAK.

Road construction in Cancun meant that the resort/tour package provider wanted to get us out by 1:20 PM so that they could assure we'd arrive at the airport with plenty of time for check in.

The resort is only 7 mi, so allowing 2 hours for the bus to get to the airport seemed weirdly conservative to me (I could walk it that fast, right?), but whatever. We didn't need more pool time at the resort.

While traffic is certainly super thick, it ends up taking us about an hour to get there, so now we have lots of time to kill.

Traveling with carry-on only, the automated kiosks make check-in a breeze, and we scoot quickly through security to find out that departure of our flight has been delayed 30 min – the inbound plane was late leaving Denver because it's snowing there. Right: even more time to kill.

We roll with it (what else ya gonna do?). Ting does some shopping to while away the time, and I work on journaling, email, reading, and socializing with other folks and friendly strangers.

Eventually, we board our flight, and after a bit of additional ground delay, we take off for Denver.

A few hours later, we arrive at DIA during a tapering snow storm: they were socked pretty good earlier today (over 8 inches of snow between midnight and noon), but ground crews at DIA managed to keep things clear enough for continued operation. Big thanks to all the folks working outside in that crappy weather!

As the plane taxis in towards the landing gates, I take my phone out of airplane mode and immediately get pinged by bad news messages from SWA: the 2nd leg of our flight has been canceled since that plane didn't make it to Denver (grounded somewhere else). Crap!

SWA has rebooked us onto the first flight out in the morning, 5:45 AM, but that's a very poor option: we have no winter clothes with us, no hotel room, and the additional delay would totally bungle today's “back-to-work” activities.

We breeze through DIA Customs & Immigration controls (GOES for the win!), and make our way to the SWA check-in counters. The first worker we see is quite grumpy, and insists we head around the corner to the “main” check in area. We do that, and five minutes later, Ms. Sourpuss is at the counter in front of us, asking what we need. This is perplexing, we explained our situation the first time we saw her.

I look around for a camera crew: nope, I'm not on a sitcom. I calmly tell our story again. The agent gives us a blank look: you're rebooked for tomorrow. See you then. Not good!

We ask about flying to SJO or SFO instead, and find out that SFO's last flight is leaving in less than an hour. Get us on it please! Another five minutes and we have boarding passes for a new make-up flight, with boarding scheduled to begin in 30 min.

Between the airport shutting down (on account of the snow storm) and on-going construction projects, DIA is really messed up right now, and we end up doing a LOT of walking.

For example, the nearby North Security checkpoint is closed. Ummmm. OK… It's only two blocks to get to the South checkpoint.

The TSA pre-check line we normally access is also shut down, but there aren't many regular passengers, so TSA should be a breeze, right? Nope.

We pick a short line, but the bag scanner there is being extra careful, and several bags (mine and others ahead of us) are scanned, examined, and then pulled out for a second pass through the machine. Aarggh!

And while there are LOTS of TSA workers around, no one is helping the woman running the scanner, so the log jam keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Tempers flare between a few passengers and the workers: “Why are you standing around?” “Don't talk to us” “Shouldn't you be helping” “Don't talk to us if you want to get out of here” Ugh! Officious idiocy when we least want it. Eventually TSA is satisfied that none of us are terrorists, and returns us our bags.

We scramble away ASAP and head down the escalators to board a tram out to our flight gate in concourse C.

Ten minutes until boarding!

We stop at the Einstein Bros. Bagel shop to pick up dinner, and encounter another bit of personnel weirdness. There are four or five people behind the counter, but only one is actually working. I grab two premade sandwiches, and ask permission to cut in front of the couple gazing at the order board: they're deciding what they want, it's OK. The working cashier rings us up, yay! Dinner is ours!

Now we're race-walking to our gate: it's about a quarter mile away, but the motorized walkways help to double the effective walking speed. We get to our gate as they're taking care of early boarding, whew! Made it!

SWA assigned assigned us medium high numbers (B50 for me) on our boarding passes, but there aren't all that many people present. Must be a LOT of transfer passengers stuck elsewhere.

We eventually board and get seats together easily. Yeah, time to relax, right?

Nope. It's snowing again, and I can't help worrying that the airport will be shut down before we can take off (happened to us a few years ago on a different winter trip).

Passenger loading ends, and then we sit there at the gate for at least 45 minutes. Apparently, SWA needs to go through the baggage hold and match the luggage manifest against the list of passengers actually on board, and it's too hard to do that sort of thing before loading luggage onto the plane. It's not clear to me how luggage can get here without a passenger, but that's their excuse. So we sit and wait.

Eventually we're cleared to go. They shut the door, the plane pulls back, and after the usual bit of taxiing out to the runway, we launch. Hooray!

The only problem now is that the plane is so late that we're gonna have a tough time getting to BART for the last train back to the east bay. A future problem: nothing can be done to fix that one now.

Zoom Zoom Zoom. The flight is uneventful, and we enjoy free drinks (a concession for being late? Hard to say, since there's no official announcement about it) with our Bagel Bros dinner.

We land at SFO at 11:50 PM, but between taxi time, hookup at the gate, and passenger unloading ahead of us, it's 12:05 AM before we exit the plane: too late for BART, damn! Time for a new transport plan!

While we walk out of Terminal 1, Ting checks her rideshare apps and finds that we can get a driver to deliver us to OAK with a 5 min wait: not bad! The rideshare pickup location has been revised since out last SFO trip, and is now on the top floor of the central garage: easy access from all of the domestic terminals. By 12:20 AM we're homeward bound again, yay!

It's chilly and sprinkling rain a bit, but traffic is really light (hey, it's after midnight on a rainy Wed night, whaddaya expect?).

Heading towards OAK along 98th Ave, we stop for a traffic light. Ting comments about the Chevron being open late (it's a 24-hour station, natch!), and the diver agrees, then zones out. The light turns green. Me: “Hey, it's green.” No response. Ting: “Hey! It's green!” No response. One more prompt and he wakes up. That's more than a little unnerving! Good thing we're near our destination!

The driver heads into the airport, and then turns aside at Terminal 1 so he can drop us at the entrance to our parking lot. Perfect! I think I can handle walking 50 yards to the car.

We load our carry-ons into the back, then scan out at the exit kiosk just after 1 AM.

A quick drive to the far side of Oakland, and 25 minutes later we've reached the Funfolks aerie, high up in the hills. Home again, yay!! Vacation accomplished!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2023 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2023 event list! ☸ On to the next event!