A Flight to Remember

I know, it has been a while but, life happens.  This, however, is too good of a story NOT to share.  I will do my best not to embellish but I don't make any promises.

So, for those of you who have removed yourself from Carolyn's universe, or, you know, just don't follow me religiously (and I gotta ask, why not?), well sit back and enjoy...A flight to remember (at least *I* will).

My oldest daughter is getting married in Ireland (not really pertinent to the post, but I'm going to be in Ireland for it in September so good that you know in advance...or that you make everything important to me important to you.  Either is fine with me.) and I am in Minnesota for her shower.  But it is HOW I got to Minnesota that's the story.

For those of you THAT far out of the loop, I am currently residing in Washington state and to see my girls I'm flying to Minnesota at least a couple times a year.  For wedding activities, like wedding dress shopping, or bridal showers.  Or occasional Billy Joel concerts.  So yesterday I flew back to Minnesota  for her bridal shower and, well it was an experience I'm not caring to experience again anytime soon.  Or ever.

The flight had 2 legs.  Short from Bellingham to Seattle, long from Seattle to Minneapolis.  On the first leg as we were hurdling down the runway on take off, right before the wheels left the ground, I heard this ...crunching sound.  Then we were air born.  When we didn't turn around I figured it was fine.  25 minutes later we get the announcement that we are approaching Seattle.  What came next was really weird.  In a window seat, I swear I kept seeing the same "landmarks" as if we maybe were circling.  Now I've done that before when like a certain ex-president was leaving his golf game in FL and all civilian airplanes were put in standby mode for landing until he cleared airspace.  Then came the voice you dread..."this is your captain speaking.We seem to have a problem with our landing gear (DID I CALL IT OR WHAT?).  We can't get confirmation that our landing gear is down so we are going to do a fly by the tower to verify that it is down." I fired out a quick text to my kids that our landing gear had issues and if they don't hear from me within the hour to please check the status of my flight.   So we do yet another circle followed by a Top Gun style buzz  of the tower maneuver then ascended again.  My gut was nope...gear isn't down.  But the captain comes in and says it is down, but not sure if it's locked.  But, they're gonna cross their fingers and give'er a go.  In between circles the flight attendant had us already opening our safety card...in the event of a crash we will need you go get in the brace position.  Luckily there were several options.  So I choose one best suited to my height and the neck pillow I was holding (UM...yeah, I'm gonna protect what ever I can), listen to the attendant say "brace...brace...brace" every 10 seconds,  all the while alternating between prayers were thoughts of...do the kids know where my documents are? All of my retirement accounts? Will someone be able to contact my sister somewhere in the Bering Sea (I think)?, you know...all the questions that flood your mind when the very real possibility of 10 minutes from now, might not exist, until we heard the wheels hit the ground....and not collapse.  No sound of metal grinding on tarmac. When you realize you've been holding your breath for the past 10 minutes and you let it out with a giant sigh.  You're on the ground.  And a battalion of fire engines are following you down the runway.

The landing gear, obviously held.  However somewhere along the line SOME cable was cut which meant the hydraulics were out and the pilot was unable to steer the plane.  So we needed to wait for a tow back to the terminal.  But first the fire department had to assess the situation and ensure  there isn't a risk to the terminal.  Once that was done, and got into our gate and deplaned so many people had to bolt to get to their connection.  Luckily, I had a decent layover (never thought I'd be grateful for having 4 hours between flights to kill) and intended on finding a bar.  Yeah...I deserved it.

So, down to 2 hours to pass, I grab a beer (it was a big one...no judgement), 

and a wrap and cut the time own to an hour before boarding my next flight thinking positively right?  I mean, after that, I should be safe as a kitten on my next flight right?  Lightening striking twice right?  So, I head to my gate and wait for the last hour until I hear the  announcement over the intercom that my flight...well maintenance has found an issue they are dealing with and they will let us know when it is resolved.  An hour later the same voice let us know that they were still working on switching out the light bulb (not sure exactly HOW many people it takes to change a light bulb but it appears to be more than one.) but hang tight.  We'll board soon.  Then, an hour after we were supposed to board, they said that the bulb was in a small space and difficult to get to but be patient.  THEN, came the announcement that one of the pilots had timed out but they had another pilot at the airport.  They just were waiting to find out how long before he could get to the gate. So my 7pm flight didn't start boarding until 830.  So my midnight arrival was now 130am, which after I got my bag and to my daughter's apt it was 2am.  

But I'm alive.  Never thought I'd say those words un-ironically.