long way home

so i made it out of portland, which in and of itself is a miracle if you watched the news and knew it took me over 4.5 hours to drive a normally hour drive. So fortunately I made it out of portland but not quite out of farmington, nm. recap... got into the small freezing plane in denver to quickly touch down in farmington then head to az. so as we're decending to farmington there's alarm like beeping noises going on, which i should have been worried about but wasn't. then we get told that we'll be quickly switching planes then heading on for the last leg. we're in farmington at 1 p.m. waiting in a then we couldn't leave b/c of "mechanical" issues. then another plane was supposed to leave to showlow then to phoenix, but it was delayed then we find around 5 p.m. that they've cancelled our plane and that we're rescheduled to fly out the next day around 1 p.m.

So after a lil' persuasion and words from my mother a plane was diverted to go to our destination as well. the inablilty to rent a car to drive to az with my new found friends, kimberly and was quite astonishing as well. ryan flew fm alaska enroute to get rigging and on the raft for his 25 day river trip down the canyon. needless to say i was super jealous (and continue to cross my fingers for karen's permit to come through, which i'm ready to quit my job at any point or place in my life in order to go on the canyon.)

back to the story... kimberly, fm austin, was headed home to see her folks for none other than Christmas day as was i. the whole ordeal was a traveling nightmare. ryan kept looking at me and saying he was wondering when the cameras were going to come out and say we've been punked. i kept humming the twilight zone song. there was miscommunication between the tower and the front office. my mother found out info 10 minutes before the people at the counter in new mexico did. it was a mess after they then said we would be reboarding b/c a flight had been diverted to take us to our location. we moved the whole 30-50 feet to find out that the old man with the security badge would have to recheck all of our bomb infested bags, since we hadn't opened any of them, and which took him a good 20-30 minutes to go through. it was a joke, then we had to wait for him to accompany the woman at the small security check where we all got frisked and yet none of us beeped when we walked through the metal detector. so word to the wise... they're throughough in farmington. ain't no bombs gunna get through them there. obviously they forgot that the planes that come to the airport can't even leave because of "mechanical" difficulties.

after we get on the plane there's a sarcastic co-pilot/flight attendent man that rudely kicks the kind couple (that i chatted with for hours that were also waiting since noon to get on their plane around 1 p.m.) because they were waiting standby. i grasped them in the lil plane and told them i was sorry. it was like a horrible Christmas gone wrong. with the 3 of us, there was too much weight and they got booted off. feeling selfish and greedy, i still kept to my seat but was inside so happy to be able to come home, especially since i was the first one in my family to fly in EVER to my small town. i was the favorite this round. so they de-ice us and then we sit, and sit and sit and sit. we're waiting for the tower to let us go and then we find out that the pilot will be over his minutes if he goes to our location as well. so jerk face sarcastic man tell the 3 of us we're going to have to get off and wait till tomorrow. i was PISSED! they got us a hotel room at a weird smelling hotel and we headed for the mexican restaurant. so needless to say my Christlike attributes were not shining through and i even thought maybe this was the night to begin to drink. i decided against it since it was so close to jesus' celebrated b-day.

so my father is the hero of the trip and of Christmas... and to think some people don't believe in Santa. Mine has been my father, so my kind father left at 9:30 p.m. at night to head across the rez to get me and my 2 new friends home for Christmas. he got in after 1:30 and we left the following morning by 7. we piled our stuff in the oldsmobile since we weren't sure if the flight would make it the next day. at noon on Christmas day we got in and we made it. it was wonderful to be with my family and as always was a quick trip. luckily by next Christmas i'll be able to use vacation leave and stay longer.

the only good thing about farmington, new mexico in my book was this gas station. hopefully there's less teenage pregnancy there.