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Friday, Dec 23, 2022
Or so I thought.
Around one in the morning, I woke up because my phone had buzzed. A text stated that my new flight had also been canceled because of the ice storms, so I was still stuck in New York City. Argh!
In the morning, the first thing I did was just find any flight I could to get to the West Coast. I booked a flight from New York to San Francisco, and then I booked a flight from San Francisco to Boise and then from Boise back to Seattle. It meant an extra night in SF, but I figured after a few days, travel would be permitted back to Seattle again. It was sort of the opposite of what I was going to do anyway, which was go from New York to Seattle to Boise and back to Seattle. I just added San Francisco along the way and then flipped the other two. The only extra cost was the SF hotel room, but I knew Alaska would have to reimburse me for that since they cancelled my flight.
Even after that, I got on the phone with Alaska Airlines, or at least on hold – they were extremely busy of course, so they were to call me back. I immediately took an Uber and went to Newark airport and found a place to sit down and relax at a restaurant. For the terminal we were at, the options for eating were extremely limited – like mainly just one place there. Luckily, there was a table open and I got a spot because the rest of the area was completely full. In fact, people were sitting on the floor all over the place as it was incredibly packed, this was December 23 after all. And it was now holiday travel chaos mixed in with airport closure chaos. Not a good time to be a traveler.
It was about four hours into this when Alaska Airlines did call me back and we worked it out so they would book me on the flights I had already selected, and therefore it wasn't going to cost me any money. In fact, I think I even saved some money this way since it involved one fewer flight. My plan was to fly to San Francisco, and spend the night there, and then I could watch the 49ers game on the next day if I wanted to, and I would fly to Boise that night.
I guess I would be home in time for Christmas.
Nursing a beer at the restaurant had worked out quite well since I got to stay there for the full five hours, but only paid $12 for one beer. Sometimes it's good to be a little cheap. Finally, it was about 8 o'clock at night, and I was able to get on my flight to San Francisco. I got a first class upgrade, and that helped considerably. The meal was wine along with squash, a roll, a salad, veggies (possibly Spinach) and a chicken wrap of some sort. I ate well and rested some.
We landed at SFO and I took a shuttle over to the hotel. I had booked the Hyatt Regency for the night. It was around $180, but again, a reimbursement was coming. I was still a bit hungry and wanted beer, so I walked around the streets and finally found a gas station. What’s funny is that it even sold sushi, which I half wanted, but gas station sushi didn’t sound safe, and it was overpriced. I just settled for some junk food and beers.
Back at the hotel, I did a little blogging (so much had happened!) and went to sleep.