Traveling Woes

Whew. We are home from our travels. We went to Charlottesville for Christmas to see Zach's parents, and the actual visit was wonderful. The traveling, on the other hand, was relatively terrible. Although, even as I write this, I know that we were lucky in comparison to lots of travelers who had it much worse. But still...I think we are giving up traveling at the holidays. With the weather, the 8 trillion other people who are traveling, the expense, and oh yeah...a toddler....it is just too much.

For Christmas, we decided to fly United directly to Dulles and drive to C'ville from there, thinking that a direct flight would be better so we wouldn't have to worry about connections, getting stranded in random places, losing bags, etc. It was a good thought, in theory. We were over an hour and a half late leaving Birmingham, for unknown reasons. So, if we had had connections, we probably would have missed them, particularly at a big airport with 8 trillion other people there. Anyway, we finally arrive at Dulles and make our way to the baggage claim, where we proceed to wait for about an hour, only to discover that United has lost Will's bag. Now, if you've been paying attention, you will remember that we were on a DIRECT flight. United "lost" Will's bag on a direct flight, which means they simply didn't put it on the plane (again, for unknown reasons). Apparently, they didn't put about half of the bags on the plane because most people on our flight had "lost" luggage. (The worst was the family in front of us who had checked their car seat for their one-year-old.)

So, we file our claim and head out to the rental car place, putting Will in his stroller. However, after putting him in, I notice that the stroller is soaking wet. Our best guess is that we unluckily parked it under a leak while waiting for our bags. The seat was wet, the diaper bag underneath the seat was wet, and now, Will was wet, too. So, if you're still paying attention, you will note that, at this point, Will is soaking wet, all of the extra items in his diaper bag are wet, and his checked bag had not arrived. Off to Target we go!

OK, I've made a long story even longer and more boring, so I'll just sum up by saying that we went to Target and got new clothes, then changed Will in the car. We all had some dinner and then set out to drive to C'ville...it was about 7:30 Eastern by then (we were initially supposed to arrive at Dulles at 3:00). By the time we arrived, Will was so worn out and discombobulated that he couldn't settle down. He didn't get to sleep until midnight, and that was only after we put his pack 'n play in our room where he could see us.

Like I said, the visit itself was much better than the traveling, and Will perked up after his bad night. Our trip home was much easier, but still took almost a full day. And, the airline pretended that we were leaving on time, but then we sat on the runway for over an hour. Zach was sitting with Will and said to me, "We haven't even taken off, and I've run out of tricks." Which pretty much sums up traveling with a toddler.