I started my journey to the Spring ERExpo show out of Indianapolis on a flight Monday at 6:45amEST through Denver and landing in San Diego at 9:35amPST. Booking the flight I wanted to ensure that I had plenty of time to prep for the reception that night, meeting friends throughout the day and final prep for the conference. Great plan, although it didn't quite work out that way.


First my flight was put into a holding pattern over Denver due to the weather and then reverted to Pueblo Colorado for refueling after holding for over 45 minutes. Arriving in Pueblo we were told refueling would take 30 minutes and then we'd be back in the air heading toward Denver. I called the airline and ensured I was transferred to the next flight to San Diego and then checked other later flights for contingency planning purposes. I was pretty confident that I'd be able to make the next flight and land in San Diego at 2pmPST, a slight change but no big deal..

Then it started snowing in Pueblo. No big deal, we'll deice and move out swiftly right? Well Pueblo is a small actually not small; more a dinky commuter airport and they didn't have the deicing equipment for large commercial jets. Did I mention there were four commercial jets sitting on their tarmac? So the pilot announced we would disembark the aircraft and then load buses for the 2 plus hour trip to Denver.

Seriously? Where are the hidden cameras?

The sun came out and the ice was melting, although a plan was put in place and anyone who didn't have checked baggage on the aircrafts would load the buses and roll-out. I was on the last aircraft to unload baggage and then the decision was made not to unload baggage rather to load the buses and the baggage would meet us in Denver. The crowd was gathering and rather unruly at this time and asked, demanded, to get back on the aircraft and fly with our baggage to Denver.

It took us another hour plus to get back through the dinky one lane of security and then another 30 minutes or so awaiting deicing from the equipment that had just arrived. Twelve hours after I started my journey I finally landed in Denver. I was reassigned to a 6pmMST flight to San Diego that was delayed another 2 hours, departure 8:06pmMST.

Landing in San Diego at 9:15pmPST I then realize that my half day trip had turned into an almost 18 hour fiasco.

So was the journey worth it? Looking back over the week I have to admit that day of travel brought great angst, although finally getting back into the groove and seeing everyone in San Diego made up for it..