Sweetly B Squared

I was hoping last week when I read Anne's and Girl's tales of airport woe that it would somehow make me immune, not just rub off :(

Our flight out to Salt Lake was perfect. We were flying standby with buddy passes, and were ready to decide this is THE way to travel! We were in the first row after first class. Sure, first class would have been better, but we had plenty of leg room anyway.

Getting back to Detroit proved to be another story on Sunday night. First of all, my marvelous man rode a bike almost 40 miles through the mountains Sunday afternoon. He had been promised an all-downhill ride. They lied. So he was beat and in no mood to navigate obstacles. I was in charge.
When we got to the airport, the flight to Detroit was overbooked by 3. We may have still had a chance. But, by the time we got to the gate, the story was much more grim. See, in extreme heat, the airplane needs to carry less weight. The fastest weight to get rid of? You guessed it - passengers. They were eliminating 20 more seats on the already overbooked flight. There was no way we'd get to Detroit on that flight. The nice gate agent looked, and there were no other flights to Detroit that day. He suggested flying to Cincinatti (a hub city for the airline) and then catching a connecting flight to Detroit the next morning.
Once we got the tickets straightened out and got to the gate for the Cinci flight, we were numbers 35 and 36 on the standby list. Luckily, we were told there were about 40 seats still available. We sat there with our fingers crossed, and luckily made it to Cinci around 11:40pm on that flight.
After sleeping a few hours at a Days Inn near the airport, we headed back to try and get on the 8am flight to Detroit. You guessed it - overbooked :( They said there was a slim chance we'd make the 10:25, but if that didn't work, our chances were even better for the noon.
After a nice breakfast including a screwdriver (who knew airports could serve liquor at 8am?!?) we checked in at the gate for the 10:25 flight. Wonder of wonders, the gate agent gave us tickets right away - we were on our way home!!

While the buddy passes were the only way we were able to afford this spur-of-the-moment trip, we'll have to think hard about whether we'd do it again. It was a challenge in patience and for me, physically (while still building up stamina after surgery), that we could have been better equipped for.
Luckily, we always have fun together, so this has become another adventure on our list!