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Last week we traveled to Memphis to visit G’Mom and Grampa. I’ve got lots to show you from the fun of the trip, but before I do I wanted to tell you about the fun of getting there and back. Hopefully you find our difficulties entertaining.

We try to always fly out of BWI airport, as it is much closer to our house than Dulles or Reagan, and is usually much easier to deal with than the two larger airports. So, when my mom dropped us off at the airport Saturday morning an hour and twenty minutes before our flight, we thought we were in good shape. Once we walked into the terminal, we knew we were wrong.

The place was packed. The line to check in at Southwest wound through the entire maze and continued on for just as long beyond it. We had to check out bags, so we got in line. We were panicked that we’d miss our flight, and as we slowly made our way through the line, we were more and more sure of it. We ended up spending 50 minutes waiting to check in. When we finally did, we were informed our bags were late and might not make it on our flight. We then had 25 minutes to get through security and to our gate. The agent checking us in was kind, and suggested we go down to Terminal C since the security line there was shorter.

We ran to Terminal C security, which was indeed short. We made it through security in 10 minutes, leaving us 15 minutes before our flight was scheduled to take off. Unsure of when they’d close the doors, Jen and Molly started running back to Terminal B while I put my shoes on. I then picked up Leah and ran after them, catching them half way down Terminal B. We made it to the gate 7 minutes before take off time, wondering if we’d be able to get on the flight and get seats together. Fortunately, the flight was delayed, and was just about to start boarding. So, we made it on, not knowing if our bags would make it as well.

When we arrived in Memphis, we went to baggage claim and were happy to find the girls’ booster seats had arrived. Sadly, our suitcases had not. They ended up arriving later that afternoon (after spending a bit of time in Chicago’s Midway airport).

On our return flight, we knew Memphis airport would be less crowded, but we still arrived almost 2 hours ahead to make sure we had time. Of course, the airport was almost empty, and we were through checkin and security in 15 minutes. But we didn’t want to risk any problems since our flight was scheduled to get into BWI at 9:15pm, and we wanted to get our girls home and in bed as quickly as possible. We actually had even more time to wait, as our flight ended up departing 45 minutes late.

We ended up arriving at 9:50 with some tired girls. We headed to baggage claim and picked up our suitcases. Our girls’ seats, however, were not there. It seems none of the special baggage on our flight made it. So, we yet again had to file a report for missing luggage. The girls were not fans of riding home in Grams’s car without their booster seats, but they were so tired at 11:00 that they didn’t complain much. Southwest delivered the booster seats to our house the following afternoon, completing our adventure.

It makes me exhausted just to write this.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2014 at 6:00 am and is filed under Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.