January 4, 2007

• Airport Adventures, Part II

  I really didn’t break my resolution… I wrote, but Xanga wouldn’t let me post Tuesday. Yesterday I got this written, but ran out of time to add the photos. Let’s see if it cooperates today…

   

  It’s been a while since I first recounted how we got stranded at Denver International Airport. We spent that night (Wednesday the 20th) making the most of the “accommodations.” We didn’t get a cot, but we did secure three seats in a row of six facing the International Arrivals concourse. The other three seats were occupied by Jeff, Gene, and George, our new friends. We managed to get a hold of three complimentary “blankets” which were more like microfiber sheets and which, in terms of size, would only qualify as blankets to children under ten. I vacillated as to whether to try sleeping in the chair or on the floor. Concluding that a prone position was requisite for slumber, I claimed a small patch of carpeted real estate, laid down one blanket, and positioned myself between it and another, with my messenger bag– my single carry-on– as a pillow. Ah, I don’t think I mentioned that before. As we had already checked our baggage before arriving on the concourse to find our flight cancelled, United Airlines kindly informed us that we couldn’t reclaim it; it would go out on the first available flight to Atlanta, even if we weren’t going with it.

   

   

  (left) some of the 5,000 stranded travelers Wednesday afternoon; (right) although UAL did not allow baggage reclaiming, Frontier did– here’s one of the areas where they stockpiled)

   

  It was shortly after 9 p.m. when I settled in, as I laid there reading my book. I finally fell asleep and woke up sometime after midnight. I was cold, too cold to remain on the floor. No doubt, it had something to do with the fact that despite blizzard conditions outside, they were running the air conditioning in the terminal building. So I returned to my seat, inbetween Maria and Dora. We all managed to sleep, off and on, by using one another as headrests– which worked fine, of course, until any one of us moved.

   

  

  here’s the wall we were facing in our seats– and a couple of folks trying to catch some winks on cold, hard floor (but the Native American artwork is cool, eh?)

   

  Eventually morning came, and Ria and I went off on a mission to get breakfast. The people I felt sorriest for in this whole situation were employees at the airport, particularly at restaurants, concessions, and retail stores. They were just as stuck there as we were, and that meant that many of them just kept working, some for 20-hour shifts or more. We visited the Burger King upstairs, who only had one item available to serve (despite displaying the full menu, and posting no sign to the contrary) and had one individual barking this fact at people. The coffee was cold, as well. I didn’t whine and was honestly grateful for what was available; it just would have been kind for them to be upfront with people and realize that we were all stuck in the same situation. We (meaning the collective thousands of stranded travelers) didn’t need the barking treatment at 6 a.m.

   

  Maria’s friend Vanessa had offered to come get us, but she called around 11 a.m. to say that they couldn’t possibly get out either. Few could. Most of metro Denver residents were literally snowbound. Two feet or more had fallen in less than 24 hours across the region. RTD (public transportation) wasn’t running. Taxicabs came roughly every four hours. The airport made deals with downtown hotels (10 miles or more from the airport) to accommodate some of the stranded and later RTD also got involved by providing busses as hotel shuttles. Unfortunately for most of us in the unwashed masses, most hotels in downtown Denver are in the four- or five-star variety and charge $300 or more per night.

   

  We somehow passed the time, chatting with our new friends, walking around the airport (they finally re-opened the concourses). When the other gentlemen’s cot was free, I napped a couple of times. I must admit, I wanted to just go home. Badly. The prospect of spending another night there was unpleasant, if not intolerable.

   

  Sometime around five that afternoon (Thursday), George’s brother told him he could get out and come get him. He (the brother) lives pretty close to our house, and when George asked, he offered to take the three of us as well. It was the best news I’d heard since the previous morning– which at that point felt like a week before. It was a long trip home– a normal 25-minute drive that took over an hour. But finally, there we were. We walked back into our house almost 36 hours after we had left it the morning before.

   

  The next morning (Friday) I felt flu-ish, and Maria declined my offer to help her shovel snow. Instead, I slept nearly the entire day and night; it’s all my body would let me do. Meanwhile, DIA officially reopened at noon Friday, but with only two of the six runways available. Saturday dawned and we all felt better. Our flight had been rebooked for 7:05 p.m. that night. We left for the airport at two, scared of the massive lines we had seen on television news reports ever since we’d been home. Our drive there was, obviously, much easier than Wednesday morning’s.

   

  

  behind the back of this UAL jet, a massive snowblower creates a veritable geyser of snow clearing from the taxiways as the sun sets Saturday

   

  But the long lines didn’t deter us, because we didn’t have to stand in them. We’d been rebooked into first class, and that meant bypassing the main check-in line, and the main security line. I felt like a rock star. Unsurprisingly, almost every flight was delayed, including ours. It didn’t actually lift off the ground until just after 10 p.m.– midnight Atlanta time. We landed around 2:45 a.m. EST. Fortunately, my brother John didn’t have a problem with picking us up at that hour. It was nearly 4 when we got to my mother’s house, and about 6 a.m., on the morning of Christmas Eve, when we finally got to sleep.

   

  To be continued (still)…

   

  • 7:27 pm
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