What?  And you thought the Highlighter Inquisition was enough for one trip?  Nahhhhh.  I finally cleared "security", stopped in for a tall Canadian draft, hooked up my laptop and (big surprise) my flight was delayed.  No real problem other than the fact that my connection is to the last plane to Charlotte from Philly.  But, being the conservative traveler, I have built in 1.5 hours of connection time and the flight is just a hair over an hour, so I’m still feeling pretty good.  Until the announcement.  "Passengers traveling from Montreal to Charlotte, your plane has just left Philadelphia on it’s way here."  Great news – unless it is already departure time for the flight.  I shrug, board the thing when it gets there and resign myself to hotel and meal voucher land in Philly while weaseling myself to the seats closer to the front and calculating my gate to gate time in case a schism in the space time continuum helps me out.

 

The plane lands, the doors open.  Myself, a woman headed to Phoenix whose flight takes off 5 min before mine two gates down from mine and a family with three little kids hit the ground runnning.  Well, I’m running since I’m in my ultra comfy new airport Merrells – the rest of the crew are kinda hauling, limping and lurching, hampered by thoroughly impractical shoes and too many kids to carry and run with (not to mention the required 57 bags of kid junk).  I spy an airport cart, empty, with driver.  I step in front of it and ask how long to get to Concourse B.  The driver tells me he’s not going there.  Meanwhile, his cart fills with the band of refugees from my plane.  I hop in, smile and say, "So where are we going then?".  And we were off!

 

Whizzing through the Philadelphia airport, I try hard to see the departure screens, praying for a delay in my home leg.  No such luck.  Still, we are moving at a good clip, sling the lady going to Phoenix off at her gate (OK, so we slowed down *some*) and then screech to a halt in front of our gate.  Which is deserted other than the gate agent packing up his stuff.  We toss tickets at him, race down the jetway and fall into our seats in exhaustion.  And then we wait.  And wait.  Then we slowly pull away from the gate.  The speaker crackles.  "Well, folks, we are in line for takeoff.  Not exactly sure where since they only announce the top 10, but we are somewhere after that.  Hopefully we should be able to take off in the next 30 minutes or so."  *groan*

 

Flight to Charlotte (once we got off the ground) was uneventful, it goes without saying that my luggage did not make my plane so I got to stand in line to report it as having been "separated" (that’s the new term for "We freaking lost your stuff, mmmkay?").  Nice lady at lost… oops, separated… luggage pulls out her form.  I hand her my baggage ticket with my number and tell her it is a jade green Samsonite hardside roller bag, overhead sized.  She looks at me and says, "So what does your bag look like?".  I try again.  "It’s a green 22" Samsonite Silhouette hardside roller bag".  She hands me a sheet of generic luggage pictures and tells me to pick one.  I pick the hardside roller bag carryon.  She asks what color.  I say green.  She asks if it has wheels.  I check for a hearing aid.  Finally she asks what kind of nylon.  I apparently looked a tad cranky as the guy behind me says, "I don’t think hardsides are made of nylon."  She hands me a disclaimer of loss sheet that says the airline isn’t responsible for the loss of anything valued over 42 cents and will only pay for those if you can provide original receipts (OK, so not that bad, but close) and a phone number to call in case they can’t find it.

 

I look at her, smile and say, "So how am I supposed to know if you can’t find it?  It seems like you would know better what you can and can’t find, doesn’t it?".  Nonplussed, she says, "Well, if we don’t find it, we won’t deliver it and you should call to see if we found it."  I respond (now kind of having a twisted sort of fun), "So if you don’t deliver it at some point, I should call and ask if you found it and didn’t deliver it or if you didn’t find it and didn’t deliver it?"  She says, "Yes."  I say, "So why do you need my phone number?"

 

"We need your phone number so we can call you if we don’t find your luggage."  Yep, it’s true.  Common sense is less common than fish for Thanksgiving.  Boy, I can’t wait for my flight to Vancouver…

Here I am in lovely Montreal – finally.  Well, actually I got here on Sunday – eventually.  Now, being a sensible traveler, I checked the airline websites and the TSA restrictions, put everything in my checked luggage, wore my nifty new (very comfy) "just for the airport screening" sandals and headed to the airport aiming for 11:30 or so on a 2:00 departure.  I give Mr. Cosmic and Cosmic Jr. a kiss, square my shoulders, gird my loins and head in to what I figured would be chaos.

 

10 minutes later I’m on the other side of security wondering what the hell I’m gonna do with all that time.  No one was at international checkin and I was the only person going through the TSA checkpoint.  What a letdown!  I was hoping to see people throwing away toothpaste, chugging bottles of wine and tasting baby formula but NOOOOOOOO….

 

That said, a smooth exit almost always means a travel nightmare.  We got out of Charlotte just fine, landed a bit early in Philadelphia.  I get off, check the boards and see I’ve got a 30 minute delay.  Bah.  Departing on Concourse F – "Please take the shuttle bus, if you walk you will have to clear security again".  I head to the bar, order a Sam Adams Oktoberfest (quite good) and a burger and settle in to kill time.  Start chatting with the guy at the next table who looks… weary.  Find out why – he’s been there for 4 hours waiting to fly to (drumroll) Montreal.  Uh oh.  Seems that his first plane had "mechanical problems" and in the fixing they blew the fire extinguisher units (taking it entirely out of commission and causing the flight to be cancelled).  Getting nervous for the intrepid Cosmic?  You should be.

 

We board about 45 min late and then we sit.  And sit.  I see the pilot getting off looking annoyed.  I’m thinking not good.  I look out the window and see luggage laying on the tarmac everywhere.  Seatmate and I start looking for our luggage somewhere in the piles and notice the pilot tossing bags on the plane.  Now I’m sure things aren’t good.  Our flight attendant announces that there is a "problem" with the baggage handlers (ya think?) and that the pilot has loaded all but 7 bags and we are leaving.  Hrm… that means seven bags left laying on the ground in Philly.  I ordered a beer.

 

Nope, it wasn’t mine, thankfully, but by the time it was all said and done, I’d spent 10 hours traveling to make two hops of around an hour and 15 minutes each.  I think I’d have rather waited at the security checkpoint – I was at least all squared and girded for that. 😉

Well, here we are in glorious Minneapolis, MN.  So far I’ve discovered that Marriott maps hasn’t a clue where their hotel is located.  As usual, I go to the hotel site and print out the driving directions from MSP to the hotel, then I shove them in my trip folder.  No, I didn’t look at them.  I get to the airport, have a beer with the illustrious Mr. & Mrs. Frisk and all the little Frisks and Grandparent Frisks, leave the airport, hop into what passes somewhat for a car and guide myself onto the interstate.  So far, so good.  I make it to 100 easily enough, then I pull out my directions to figure out what happens next.  This is what I see:

 

5	At exit 7A, take Ramp (RIGHT) onto SR-100 [Normandale Blvd]	8.0
6	Turn RIGHT onto Ramp	0.3
7	Keep RIGHT to stay on Ramp	0.3
8	Keep LEFT to stay on Ramp	0.1
9	Keep STRAIGHT to stay on Ramp	0.3
10	Keep RIGHT to stay on Ramp	0.1
11	Keep STRAIGHT onto Parkdale Dr	0.2
12	Keep STRAIGHT onto Local road(s)	0.0
13	Keep STRAIGHT onto Cedar Lake Rd S

 

All righty then… um… apparently, I’m supposed to stay on a series of ramps for a couple of miles?  Yoiks!