Missouri Trip

The past week and half has been very busy in the Pigeon household. My wife and I had to fly out to Missouri   last minute on New Years Eve. I have never been to Missouri, but I knew and was told many times that it was going to be cold, very cold. It was pretty stressful getting ready for the trip, luckily our friend was able to dog/house sit for us as we do not ever want to board our boys in a kennel. My wife found the airline tickets, rental car, and hotel and booked them 2 days prior to our departure.

Our flight out of Sacramento was delayed about 20 minutes, we were flying into Salt Lake City and had a connecting flight that originally would give us a 40 minute layover. We arrived at Salt Lake City and grabbed our things and took off running to our connecting flight. We ran so fast, it was like a impromptu speed work at the track. We ran to our gate with minutes to spare. I think we were close to the last passengers on the flight. But we made it as I didn't want to be stuck in the airport all night.

We arrived in Missouri later that evening and before leaving the baggage claim to get our rental car my wife had me bundle up, jacket and gloves and she made me put my hood on. It was cold, but this wouldn't be the coldest day, in fact it might have been the warmest day. While in Missouri we spent a lot of time with her family. I met a lot of family I have never met before. One day we drove over to her parents house which was about 3 hours away from our hotel. We spent  most of the day/evening there and left just before dark. There was a snow storm coming in, which if you lived in Missouri you would call it "A light dusting." The interstate was down to 1 lane and we were driving 30 miles an hour at one point. I was scared that we were going to slid off the road, get sandwiched between the other cars. We eventually arrived home but it took about 4 hours of stressful and painfully slow driving to get home.

As the week drew near we started watching this massive storm come our way, hit Missouri and then continue onto the East Coast. This storm canceled thousands of flights and delayed thousands of flights as well. We knew that there was a possibility of our flight leaving Kansas City could get delayed (Which it did) and also the possibility of our connecting flight in Denver being delayed or cancelled overall.

We left Kansas City late which meant that we were going to have to hussle to our connecting flight in Denver. Once on the plane we were waiting for our pilots arrive as they were coming from the East Coast and once again we were delayed roughly 20 minutes. We left and settled in for the flight. We arrived in Denver with no time to spare. We had 5 minutes to get to our connecting flight which was all the way at the other end, and the bad news was we were last passengers off the plane. We took off running, using the moving sidewalks so we could cover more ground faster. Rachel told me to run ahead so I did. I ran my little heart out. I neared the gate at the end of the terminal and looked out the window and I could see our plane. Only it was slowly ever so slowly backing away. The gate agent apologized saying they couldn't hold the plan as they needed to get the planes back on schedule. I had arrived exactly at 7:55pm right when our plane was due to depart. Really, you couldn't hold the plan. There were at leases 8 passengers on our flight and numerous other passengers that were heading to Sacramento. Agh, frustration sets in.

Now we have to walk all the way back to customer service to try and get on a different flight. The line at the customer service counter was long. It took us 4 hours to get to the ticket counter. And guess what? There were no flights leaving Denver that evening. We were stuck in Denver. Also, the hotels were booked so we were sleeping in the air port.

We were really tired by now. While waiting in line at customer service I made some calls to make sure our boys (dogs) were taken care of, as our dog sitter was leaving town the next day for New York. Luckily my brother in law was helping us out. Rachel and I found a corner near the terminal where our flight we were flying stand by on would leave and tried to get some sleep. I was unable to get comfortable and I think I managed 2 hours of sleep sitting in the chair, while Rachel was out like a light as soon as her head hit the suitcase.

In the morning we checked in as stand by passengers on the early flight and luck was on our side. We were able to get on the flight. We finally arrived in Sacramento after a long 2 days of traveling.

It felt good to be home again and our boys were super excited to see us. I am glad that I was able to make the trip with my wife. I learned a lot about her grandmother. Even though she is no longer with us and I never had the opportunity to meet her, I know that  she will always be looking over us and is apart of us to this day. If you were to describe Rachel's grandma in one word....that word would be perseverance. When I heard that I smiled as I have a tattoo on my left arm that says perseverance. She will always be with us, and right now she is with my mom looking out for us and smiling.