The adventure of flying/Das Abenteuer des Fliegens

I thought that the purpose of my flights on this trip was to get me to the places where my adventures would take place, and I certainly didn't think of Minneapolis, Minnesota as being an adventurous location, but my flight from there to Dallas turned out to be much longer and more complicated than planned.

I left North Dakota Friday morning and was to reach Dallas via Minneapolis and Chicago (devious because of the two different airlines involved) on the evening. The first leg of the journey went quickly, and I had time to enjoy the airport in Minnesota before boarding the flight to O'Hare. Well, we sat in the plane, parked on the runway for almost two hours, with the occasional information that they were waiting for clearance from Chicago, where there were storms, possibly even reported tornados. OK, it's better to be safe on the ground than to get into stormy weather up in the sky, I thought, but by the time the plane taxied back to the gate, my connecting flight was leaving Chicago.

There was a long line to reroute and rebook flights back in the airport, and no chance for me to get to Dallas that evening, so after the complicated process of rebooking a flight directly from Minneapolis to Dallas the next morning, I had to take a hotel room for the night - at my own expense, since weather is not the airline's responsibility. Up early the next morning, I was on the plane and on the way to Dallas, hoping to be there later in the morning and still have half of that day with my brother and his family.

Well, by that time the weather in Dallas was acting up, and the plane didn't have enough fuel to keep circling for too long, so it flew down to Austin to refuel there. For some reason unknown to me, we did have to deplane there, and the plane did not fly to Dallas, so we all ended up picking up our luggage again and standing in line again to rebook a flight to Dallas. The next few flights were cancelled, but one machine was actually there to take us - but by the time flight time arrived, they said that the pilot and cockpit crew forit hadn't arrived yet, as they were still stuck on the ground in Dallas. By the time they finally got to Austin I had walked around the airport there more than I cared to, not able to leave the building because we never knew when the plane might leave.

I arrived in Dallas Saturday evening, 24 hours after I was scheduled to do so! (Had I left North Dakota by car on Friday morning, I could have ben there by then!) The worst part of it was that I only had the weekend there, as my brother works long hours during the week, so we had hoped to have at least those two+ days together. Two nights and one day were short, but we did our best to make the best of them.

By comparison, yesterday's flight to Hawai'i went smoothly; it took eight hours, and the airlines don't serve food except for expensive sandwiches to buy on domestic flights even of that length, but as everyone has been feeding me better than necessary, it felt good to have a few hours without anything but liquids. I was picked up by my (other) brother and wife here, greeted with two wonderful leis and am looking forward to my week here! More in the days to come...


Die komplizierte Geschichte meines Flugabenteuers am letzten Wochenende werde ich in Deutsch nachholen, wenn ich Zeit habe. Jetzt bin ich gut in Hawai'i angekommen und freue mich auf meine Tage hier - mehr dazu bald, nun geht's los auf Entdeckungsfahrt!