UTAH 2013 // UTBDR

01 Nov UTAH 2013 // UTBDR

Day Whatever

I finally made it back to BigDog’s motovan in Cortez, CO… the theme of the next 2 days.. rain!! Jeff said they got more rain the few weeks around our visit than all the time he’d lived in Colorado.. haha!

Jeff’s dad was a great sport.. he kept me company during my wait for my flight, I even bummed a ride to the airport from him.

I got checked-in, boarding pass in hand.. then we see our plan taxi up, pilots get out and engines turn off. Hmm…..

There’s about 10 of us there waiting… and we notice all of the airport personel kinda huddling around whispering.. then they break and take us through security.. yes!! 10 minutes later.. “We’re sorry but they have cancelled flights into Denver, we are in a 1 hour delay”.

So we sit and wait…

One hour turns into two, then three, then they say the flight is cancelled for the night. All of us scramble to call the airlines and re-book for the 6am flight the next morning. I talk to United and he confirms my booking.. so I call my good buddy Jeff back up… “J…E..F..F…. I’m stuck at the airport!” “No problem, I’ll pick you up and you can stay at the house, dinner’s waiting for you”, Jeff says. Woohoooo!!

So I stay at Jeff’s another night, he kindly gives me the keys to his truck to take to the airport, since I have to be there at 5am! What a help that was.. I get to the airport, go to check in.. and “I’m sorry sir, but you are NOT in our system!”

“Oh.. and there are no empty seats on this flight!”

My jaw drops.. and they tell me to call the airline, which I do… Immediately the lady(who knows what she’s doing) starts to put it in high gear to help me out. She calmly tells me what she’s doing and to please hold… I hold. and hold. and hold. The airport is now pushing passengers through security and seating them on the plane!! While I’m standing in the lobby waiting…..

She comes back and says “you are good to go..BUT you have to go to Denver, then to Chicago, then to St. Louis… so have them print your boarding pass.” They try and fail! Seems I know owe $300 bucks.. so I kindly tell the mystery lady on the phone…. she says “hold on.. let me do something… ok, almost done, ok have them try now” BOOM!! :clap

Now I hurry and go through security, get on the plan.. and we sit.. and wait again………

Finally, clear to take off.. we fly to Denver, I bust over to the tram, get to my gate and on the gate.. (wish I took a photo!)

FLIGHT TO CHICAGO DELAYED 9:30AM (2 HR DELAY!)

Which means my connector from Chicago to St. Louis I will not make…. so the United clerk does some magic and books me on a later flight out of Chicago, putting me in St. Louis, instead of 4:30pm a good ole 10:45pm!!!!

At this point I didn’t care.. I ate a burrito and finally got on my flight to Chicago.. where I waited a couple more hours that I’ll never get back…

Ahh… time to board this little puddle jumper to St. Louie…

Spending so much time in airports, there are lots of stories I could tell.. but most importantly the one about how much I HATE to fly and rely on airlines to get me where I need to go. I should of left Cortez, CO on my WR250R and been back in St. Louis sooner than flying… from Cortez, CO to St. Louis is just an few hours on a airplane, but mine took a couple days!! haha!!

Our UTBDR trip was an epic adventure… but the best part was this..

Riding with good buddies, doing what we love to do.. ride ANYWHERE!