The goals series will relaunch tomorrow with my BLP 2025 goals ep (plus Laura and I have our BOBW version coming out Tuesday!).
Travel Fail!
A brief note to share that we survived our first “getting stuck somewhere” travel experience!
We headed out of our Big Sky hotel at 11 am Friday morning; the plan was a 2 pm flight to Chicago and then a 6:30 pm flight to PBI, landing around 11:30 pm. Not the easiest travel day, but not bad either.
But . . .Best Laid Plans, right!? (Am I allowed to use this phrase ironically? Ha!!)
We ended up getting delayed in Bozeman due to a plane maintenance/crew issue (something about the door? But then someone else said crew?) and when we landed in Chicago ~2 hours late, our connection was long gone. Because it’s holiday travel season you can imagine there were NOT a lot of flights to re-book our flight filled with stranded connectors!
When the delays started, I went into full on panic mode because there was a BLP at Home session for 2 pm – 4 pm on Saturday (the next day) that I had to be back home (or alternatively, somewhere quiet with internet) to lead. Planning things out originally, it honestly didn’t cross my mind that I wouldn’t be home by the middle of the next day but . . . things were looking bad.
Our airline (American)’s solution/offer was to put us on 2 more flights the next day through Dallas that landed on 11 pm Saturday (ie, 24 hours after the initial arrival time and I’d be in the air when I needed to be presenting). We instead cancelled our flights for a refund (amount TBD, but at least something) and I miraculously found a United flight (shout-out to the Kayak app, super useful!) from Chicago to PBI for the next morning at 7:00 am, landing around 11:30 am. This STILL made me nervous (we live an hour away from PBI) but it was the best option I could find, so we paid for it (a bit overpriced, but honestly much better than expected given the circumstances!) with fervent hopes that it would be on time.
THANKFULLY it was, or close enough! We all sat in random middle seats (G talked the ear off of strangers, lol) but I feel SOOOO lucky that these seats were available at all!!! We landed, got our bags, and were on our way home by 12:30. I was home and prepping to start my talk by 1:30 — a whole 30 minutes to spare!!!
Oh! And we spent our very first (likely not last?) stuck-at-the-airport overnight at the Hilton that is WITHIN O’Hare airport, because we were exhausted and were going to get less than 6 hours of sleep as it was. Glad that was an option and that they had beds!
Funnily enough before all of this happened I was remarking to Josh how nice it was going to be to slide into the second week of break all rested and feeling ‘ready’ for the new year, but then all of this happened. Thankfully we have now MOSTLY recovered, BLP at Home went well (yay!), and we celebrated at his parents’ house with a Hanukkah party last night!
Did I learn anything from this? I think I’ll be more careful with connection times in the future, especially during busy travel periods! I also need to maybe consider the day after travel “risky” to plan anything super important. I feel like we’ve been so lucky in most of our flying that this didn’t occur to me but . . . good to know!
(Just a prototype, I printed the workbooks from last year’s Planning By Season course in A5 size using Doxzoo!)
(Not shown: homemade mini jelly donuts!)
11 Comments
It really is hard to consider something until it happens to you. Glad it all worked out!
Glad it worked out! I’m surprised someone wouldn’t trade seats so one of you would sit next to G, but if she was happy, I’m glad
I didn’t push hard bc I wasn’t sure anyone would take a middle in exchange for an aisle or window … but it was fine in the end !
Personally I wouldn’t dream of asking someone to switch seats with me so I could sit next to a well behaved 7yo. So glad it all worked out! I typically plan my flights back from vacation a day early to avoid this sort of stress… but I swear literally nobody I work with has any qualms about calling in for way more trivial stuff, so I’m reconsidering whether I should let me job dictate this aspect of my life… anyway. Glad you’re all home safe!
This would legit be my dream as a mom of a 2.5 year old. A well behaved 7 year old next to me on a flight (even if I was traveling without my toddler) – piece of cake!
I’m glad you made it home in time for your training session! I would have been stressed! I have been lucky about flight delays but I do not have to take connection ever since I live in a delta hub. I’ve taken one in the last 5+ years, maybe 10 years!! It’s kind of crappy that American couldn’t come up with a better option. I get that flights are very booked now but sheesh. But all is well that ends well!
oooohhh I’m so jealous! Cannot fly direct to Bozeman from any south FL airport, sadly! I also have to fly to Reno non-direct in a few months. I agree I ALWAYS pick direct whenever possible. Even if it means more driving to a farther airport!
Woo, this sounds stressful. I wouldn’t want to do work right after a trip. Glad it all worked out. I agree that a buffer day would be good.
Yikes!!! Glad you made it back in the nick of time. That is stressful, especially traveling with kids!
Sarah, you mentioned the kids were a little skied out by Day 4. Since I imagine you’ll be returning to Bozeman again as it seems to be one of your family’s favorite destinations, might I recommend you add a day trip to Yellowstone to break up the skiing next time? I have only been in summer but it’s on my bucket list to go snowmobiling and snow shoeing there in the winter someday. I believe the West Yellowstone entrance is only an hour from Big Sky—that entrance is closed to cars in winter but you can ride via snowmobile to visit geysers and see bison. What could be cooler?
Yesssss we were talking about exactly that !!! Sounds totally amazing though I heard can end up canceled (or convertedu to bus) if not enough snow. 100% want to do this next time.