...and they're off...

The first leg of our journey got off with a bang, or actually a burrito. Patti, in typical Patti style somehow scored $28 per person lounge access for free. Not sure how she does it. Yet another feat that solidifies her title as the credit card deal queen.

Travel to and from ones destination is of course an unavoidable part of any trip. Getting there can be good and or bad. After all of our journeys we have finally added our names the toubled side of the airline ledger.

The first domino was the missing first officer on the Denver to Minneapolis leg and so went the toppling.  Our already tight connection from Minneapolis to Amsterdam was completely avoidable chaos. There were 16 of us that were aiming for that flight to Amsterdam, all with differing final destinations. The crew on the Denver originating flight could have asked that the other passengers remain seated until we exited.  Instead the told us to run, that our flight was waiting.

Run we did, like lightening. Think Chariots of Fire but with the pulsating hum of luggage wheels on polished concrete as they tried to draw blood from our fleeing ankles.  We did the 400 yard, err 400 gate dash, at a speed that gave the legions of gate attendants that we passed whiplash. We had a killer negative split after a cartman asked us to climb aboard his battery powered wondership. We finished in style and arrived right on the minute of the originally scheduled departure.

"Where are you going?!" was the cry of the gate crew as we navigated to the gate door, "your plane is gone...".

We spent the entirety of the next 4 hours trying to get on the best option to Amsterdam with most of that in a holding pattern on the special direct customer service connection phones. I kept looking around for the cameras capturing the evidence on the best worst way to placate the helpless.

This guy had the right idea with the fancy but useless phones.

We divided, but calling it a conquering would be a stretch. Patti manned the wired bat phone, her mobile, and the customer service agent at G9.  After a failed attempt to get on an earlier flight at G4 I was told to go to the F1 service desk, because the G9 desk agents were no good, that explains a few things. We did finally get tickets for the last possible flight that would get us into Istanbul on Monday and maybe to our connection.  When we arrived at our departure gate we were greeted with "oh, you are the Huth family" ;-).

This is my kids favorite part of travelling.

We are in the air now and if everything stays on schedule we will have 25 minutes to unload, claim baggage, get customized, and top it off with more sprinting. 

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