Yesterday morning Ryker and I headed to the airport to fly to Seattle to visit Manda and Jon. We were flying on JetBlue from Salt Lake to Long Beach, and from Long Beach to Seattle. The Long Beach flight left at 6:30am and SUPPOSED to land at 7:21am. Then the plan WAS to hurry over to the flight to Seattle that left at 8:00am and land at 10:40am. Then we could have a whole day with Jon and Amanda.
As we were loading the plane in Salt Lake the cockpit was open and the pilot saw Ryker come aboard. The pilot told Ryker to go in and check out the instruments. I thought it was so nice of the pilot to offer. How many kids get that opportunity? Me being his mom I got to go in as well and take pictures. The whole time I was looking at everything I was very glad that the pilot knew what all those buttons and knobs were for because to me it looked like a whole lot of craziness. Ryker thought that was pretty awesome to sit in the pilot seat.
As we were coming into Long Beach the pilot came over the intercom telling the passengers that there was alot of fog (see picture below) and they were going to circle around until it cleared up. At this point it was a little after 7am and I was starting to feel worried if we were going to make our connecting flight to Seattle which started to board at 7:30. The flight attendant knew that I had a tight layover and she came and told me that we SHOULD be ok and that we SHOULD land in time.
The fog cleared up just a little bit for the pilot to attempt to land the plane... but as he got down into the fog and right as we were about to land, he would pull up at the last minute because the visibility level dropped again... He did this THREE times over a TWO hour period. Ryker mentioned to me that the plane was making him feel sick. Can you blame him? We just kept circling over the city until we unfortunately ran out of fuel and had to be redirected to ONTARIO to fuel back up. Once that happened we then flew BACK to Long Beach and landed around 10am.
Obviously we missed our connecting flight. The biggest bummer was that the next flight to Seattle wasn't until 6:15pm. That's EIGHT hours we had to kill in Long Beach. UGH!
I guess I shouldn't complain because I got to spend the whole day with my little man. But when you are stuck in a city that you are unfamiliar with and no way around it's kind of discouraging. We hung out at the airport for a bit while my phone was charging. Then waited another hour at the bus stop. We caught a ride down to the mall where we walked around and had lunch.
After that we made our way back to the bus stop. By this point Ryker was feeling really tired and didn't want to walk anymore. I carried him part of the way, but trying to carry him and my purse and his backpack was just too much for me to handle all at once. He was so happy to make it to the bus stop where he could sit and rest.
We made it back to the airport with an hour before boarding. I thought to myself 'I can handle 1 hour since I just killed 7.' Ryker and I played games that he would make up..like pushing all his crayons into a bucket...or tossing a game piece (he found in his backpack) back and forth. He made friends with a lady that was sitting next to us in the waiting area.
We boarded the plane and we were on our way. FINALLY!!! I was so anxious to get there and see my sista.
Ryker fell asleep about an hour into the flight. Which I was glad because then I could get a little bit of rest. But he was out like a light even when we landed. I had to wake him up so we could walk off the plane. Oh I felt so bad. I was feeling so exhausted and I can only imagine how he felt. He could hardly walk and he just kept asking if I would carry him. So I did. All the way to the baggage claim.
Our baggage took forever to come. There was a baggage jam.. who has ever heard of a baggage jam? (Not our day).
When we finally got everything we headed out to the curb to be picked up by Manda. OH JOY!!!! We had arrived! (10 HOURS later than planned).
I was so impressed at how well Ryker handled the long and tiring day. He really only had one meltdown and that was due to being hungry and tired. I had several people tell me how polite and sweet he was. He's such a good boy!!!
As we were leaving I just was so taken back at all the beautiful trees. Fall is just GORGEOUS here!
We are staying until Tuesday... so more still to come! Stay tuned!!!
1 comment:
It seems like you always have some time of adventure whenever you go on a trip! Ha ha. That's so crazy that it took that long. I've never heard of a pilot not being able to land because of the fog being that bad and then to have to fly somewhere else to fuel up. That's just crazy. And the baggage jam lol that one cracks me up. I agree, who's ever heard of that before? Poor Ryker I can only imagine how tiring and long that must have been for him. But obviously he's a trooper cuz he did so well. Glad you are there now and can finally enjoy your trip!
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