Oh, Kansas Weather

Of course a Kansas hail storm causes my flight to be canceled. As soon as I am actually ready to go to Europe, I cannot leave for another day.

My mom and I headed to the airport tonight, running a bit late as usual. We made a mad dash to Quik Trip for one last delicious “Henry Special,” then booked it to the airport. Upon arriving, I find that after scrupulous packing, one of my suitcases is 4.5 pounds overweight. So I opened it up and pulled out a pair of boots to stick in my mom’s carry-on and my pair of cowboy boots that I put on and wore. What a great way to start our trip and enter England, I thought: on good footing.

Then we go through security, with some dubious “personal items.” In addition to our rolling carry-on suitcases, my mom had a small duffel for her personal item and I had a backpack that was rather hefty for mine (personal items include a purse, laptop, or briefcase). For once in my life, I received a low-key inspection of my insulin pump (which is usually swabbed and tested for explosives) and no pat-down. I was shocked when the security lady asked me to pull it out of my pocket and merely thanked me for doing so.

It started pouring outside as we boarded our plane. We had to climb down two flights of stairs to get outside, go into the rain to load up our carry-ons onto a luggage cart, climb another flight of stairs into the plane itself, and get settled. We then sat on the plane for two hours while it rained, then hailed. Next we had to wait for a maintenance worker to examine the plane for hail damage; while he was finally doing so, it began to hail again. Then he inspected it, found four dents, and we were informed that pictures of the dents must be sent to Utah for engineers to assess before the plane could be flown. We deboarded the plane and waited in huge lines to speak with an attendant to reschedule our flight. For the cherry on top, we received our carry-ons back soaking wet. Fabulous.

Unfortunately, there were no attendants. We waited in a line for at least half an hour before an attendant appeared. Then we finally find out that there are no flights that arrive in England earlier than Friday afternoon (originally we were to arrive Thursday afternoon and already have our hotel booked for Thursday night). My mom pushed and prodded until they found the absolute earliest flight leaving tomorrow morning, where we will need to take three planes and arrive in England Friday morning. Whew.

After four plus hours at the airport, no food since noon, and all the stress of boarding a plane, I’m sitting here in my room at home. When I am FINALLY READY and no longer in denial, here I am pointlessly sleeping at home when I could be flying over the Atlantic right now. Oh, the irony.

Hopefully, our flights tomorrow will run smoothly, without mishap. I mean, there are only so many delays that one can have in a first international flight, right? Let’s hope so. At least this trip is guaranteed to be memorable, right out of the gate.