I know y’all love my travel stories, right?  I am here to entertain and today’s installment of Traveling with Chris and Beth Ann is just one of many.

While it is fresh in my mind I thought i would start your week off right and share the latest in our escapades.

Saturday morning we got up at 4 am to make our early flight out of Asheville to Ohio.  The week will be filled with family time (both sides) and sales calls for Chris.  Combining some work and pleasure is always a good thing.

We got up and showered and as we were getting ready to leave received texts alerting us to the fact our flight was delayed an hour. Rats!  We could have slept another hour.  We hung around the house a little bit longer and got to the airport, checked in, got through security and then grabbed breakfast and boarded our flight to Atlanta knowing we had probably blown our chances for our connection.  Delta already had put us on the later flight to Columbus so we had a plan.

As we were in the air the flight attendant came around and told us we would have 16 minutes to make it from B concourse to A concourse but it was possible .  Of course there was not crew to bring us in when we landed and then we had to wait on the jet bridge so more minutes ticked off the clock.  We made it off the plane, to the train and the minutes were ticking away.  We did not run full speed but we were hustling through the terminal to the last gate (of course) and saw that there were still people there so we thought we were okay.

Actually the flight was delayed although no one had told us that.   No crew.  The whole storm issue earlier in the week still had Delta out of whack trying to catch up and trust me when I say that there were a lot of unhappy people milling around.

The captain told Chris that he was trying to get a crew but if nothing else there would be a crew there by 3 (this was at 9:15 am) and that was all he could tell us. They were trying to get an earlier crew but it may not work.  So off to the Sky Club we went.

I will shorten the whole story a bit because I want you to still be my readers after this post and if I tell it all you may fall asleep.  Suffice it to say information was not coming through the pipeline very well and while we thought we were going to be boarding and going several times it was not to be.  Two more trips to the gate ensued.  And more trips back to the SkyClub to wait.  It was not pretty.

We made friends in the SkyClub who were on the same flight.  We promised to keep track of each other.

Finally we got a notice that our luggage was being loaded.  We went to the gate.  We got on the plane.  We sat and got ready to go.

The captain came on the intercom and said that there was a fan that was not working correctly and maintenance had come to look at it.  It had to work for the plane to go.  It was going to take 3 1/2 hours to fix it.

A collective groan went up.

He announced they were getting us another plane and we were to deplane and they would get us on our way on a new plane.

So…..we went back to the SkyClub knowing that they had to transfer all the luggage and I suspected there would be a gate change.

About 20 minutes later we got notification of the gate change so we headed out and got there as the plane was being boarded.  One of our “buddies” from the SkyClub was worried about us since we hadn’t boarded yet and was making sure we got there.  See, people do still care.

Finally we thought we were ready to go.  But a passenger who had been our earlier flight from Asheville had been “over served” and was puking in the back of the plane.  Another delay.  Flight attendants were scurrying with garbage bags and paper towels, etc.

Pretty soon a flight attendant holding a backpack came by encouraging the man to come on out of the plane even though he said he was fine.  I suspect if she had not gotten him off there would have been plenty of others on the plane who would have stepped up to make sure it happened.

We finally got up in the air and on our way and the rest of the trip was easy.  Luggage arrived with us and we were on our way to visit family.  We got to Ada at 8:30 pm and collapsed.

I always say that traveling either by car or plane is never predictable and you have to be flexible.  What was good with our day was that we were together and I had plenty of reading material.  We did not have a particular time frame that we had to be someplace so that was good.  While it was inconvenient it was manageable.  We were safe and in far better shape than that gentleman who spent his delay drinking in the bar.

So what do you do when travel plans go awry?  Do you overreact or do you go with the flow?  Tell me your worst travel experience in the comments and I will pick a winner of the “Worst Travel Experience Ever”.

But always remember to pack extra underwear in your carry on.  You never know when you might need them due to travel snafus.