My Labor Day Weekend!

[If you want to hear about what I actually did for most of the weekend, go to this post on Nathan's blog. If you want to hear about the long process of how I got to Colorado Springs, this is the place to be!]

At JBU we don't have classes on Labor Day off. Last year I had stayed on campus, and there was basically no one around. But, it's so close to the beginning of school that it seems silly to go home. Anyhow, this year I had a much more interesting weekend! Labor Day weekend is Parents Weekend at USAFA (U.S. Air Force Academy - where Nathan is going to school!), so Dad and Mom drove up on Wednesday to spend the weekend with him. Nathan knew they were planning to come, of course. What he didn't know is that we'd been planning a surprise for him, even since before he left Dallas in June! The surprise? That I would fly to Colo. Sprgs. so I could join them for the weekend! :D

Anyway, one of my friends here at JBU lives in Colorado Springs, so when Dad and Mom and I came up with the idea I messaged her to see if maybe we could fly together! Her name is Cassie, and we were able to fly together - it was nice to not be by myself :) And, it made the surprise part much easier, because her parents could pick us up from the airport. We were able to find some reasonably priced tickets (flying into Denver instead of Colo. Sprgs.), but the flight that we had to pick wasn't the most convenient :/

On Friday (the 3rd) we both had class until 4:00, so we had to take the last flight package of the day from Tulsa to Denver. That made us go from Tulsa to Phoenix and then from Phoenix to Denver. Talk about the long way around! So we found a ride to Tulsa, since neither of us have a car. [Important note - we left JBU at 4:00 p.m. CentralST - remember that!] On Thursday I got really worried because I had seen that it took an hour and a half to get from JBU to Tulsa, and I didn't know what traffic or airport lines would be like, and our flight left at 6:20! But, that all worked out perfectly fine. I think we were sitting at our gate by 5:30, because it only took one hour to get to the airport. We eventually boarded our flight, which left on time, and that is when our adventures began! (Cassie and I had hoped to sit together, but there weren't any seats together when we boarded)

Our itinerary said that we would land at Phoenix at 6:50, and then we would have an hour lay-over until our flight to Denver left. I hadn't looked at a map recently to see just how far it was from Arkansas to Arizona. So I glibly thought our flight would be 30 minutes. 3o minutes into the flight, the pilot had just announced that we had reached cruising altitude, and the attendants were just starting to pass out drinks and such. I hadn't thought about the time change. Phoenix must be in MountainST. So it would be an hour and a half. No big deal. I changed my watch and settled back into my seat to get some reading done for school.

7:30 MST came around, and we had just started our descent. I started getting worried about then. Was our flight that much behind schedule???? Cassie and I had to catch a flight at 7:50! I even checked a map in the plane magazine to see if Arizona was in PacificST. It wasn't. We landed right at 7:50, and I was so sure we were going to miss our flight. We were in the back of the plane, and I knew there was no way we were going to get off that plane, find our gate, and get onto the next plane in time. Cassie tapped me on the shoulder and said "we are going to have to book it!" I checked my phone, and it said the time was 6:50. I did a double take, checked my MST-set watch, and then a light dawned. I told Cassie to check her phone. She did, and it said 6:50. Then I realized what had happened. Silly little AZ doesn't do Daylight Savings Time. So for half of the year, it is in MST. For the other half of the year, it is in PST. We weren't going to miss our flight. We had landed right on time and had an hour to relax.

So we got off the plane, got some food, and then lay across some seats talking. We also talked to this really cute little boy (about 6 or 7 years old I think) who wanted to tell us all about the kids show on the TV :) At 7:30 or so we headed over to our gate for our next flight. Our plane was a little late coming in from LAX. The people who had been on the plane got off, and then the boarding process started.....and then suddenly stopped. We had no idea what was going on, the line just wasn't moving at all.

After a few minutes, two girls (well, they were probably a couple years older than me) came off the plane and were standing against the wall complaining about someone being rude. A couple more people boarded the plane, and then the line stopped again while the guy doing the boarding went to the airplane and got someone for the girls to talk to. They were apparently complaining that a flight attendant had been rude to them (I still think they were taking advantage of the two situations with flight attendants that have happened recently), while the attendant was saying that the girls hadn't done what she asked them to do, or something like that. Anyway, those two girls did not get back on the plane. I think they were basically kicked off the flight. So because of all that, our flight was at least half an hour late when be finally pulled away from the gate at about 8:30 PST.

It had been announced that it would be a full flight, so Cassie and I knew we didn't have a chance of sitting together. When we saw that both front rows had an empty seat we immediately took them. So we were in the first row - which made it nice for getting off the plane! We finally landed in Denver at about 11:00 p.m. MST. Cassie's parents met us at the baggage claim area. We waited a while at the carousel that had our flight's info, and then it was announced that our flight's baggage was at a different one. So we finally got our stuff, and then we started driving to Colo. Sprgs.

Since I was trying to surprise Nathan by just showing up at the hotel where he was staying with Dad and Mom, I couldn't call to let them know the flight was late. They had all gone to bed at about 10 (I think) anyway. Mom called me at about 12:30 a.m. MST, and I told her then. A little before 1 a.m. MST, I finally got dropped off at the hotel. Mom had told me on Thursday what room number they would be in, so I went up and Mom let me in. Nathan was sound asleep, so I shook him awake. He looked at me and was like "hi" with his sleepy smile. Then his facial expression showed his mental realization of "wait a minute, what are you doing here???? You're supposed to be in AR!" It was funny :) So then we all got settled back down and went to sleep.

So it was 1 a.m. MST by the time I arrived at the hotel - 2 a.m. CST. TEN HOURS after we had left JBU. I was definitely tired, but it was SO worth it!

The trip back to JBU on Monday the 6th was much less eventful. There was a male flight attendant who used the safety briefing as an opportunity to show off his beatboxing skills - so that was funny :) We were able to take a direct flight from Denver to Tulsa, which was nice. Another girl who goes to JBU and has a boyfriend at USAFA flew back on the same flight as us (she had been able to get an earlier flight on Friday), so one of her friends tooks us from Tulsa back to JBU.

And that's the end of my long story :)