In fact, I said "I love you!" to two different strangers - one on the phone and one in person. The story goes like this . . . We had the opportunity to go back east to Pennsylvania and Washington DC last week (more on that later). We flew in to Harrisburg, PA which was close to where I had to be for work. To start our journey home on Friday, we got to the Harrisburg, PA airport at the right time, had no issues, got on our short flight to Washington DC Dulles airport for our connection to Denver, then to Pasco. We had a couple hours in DC and like 4 in Denver for layovers. So, we walked around the Dulles airport, bought a couple sovenirs and made our way to our gate. We were going to leave about 4pm. Well, we didn't board and they make an annoucement that the plane had a water valve that wasn't working and it had to be fixed. So, at first they didn't think it was going to take very long. About 4:30pm, they said they will give us an update at 6pm. I still wasn't worried because our plane out of Denver wasn't leaving until 9:55pm and there's a time difference. So, we snacked - didn't want to eat because we wanted to catch a Jamba Juice at Denver. I caught up on some work emails for a while. No update at 6pm came. A little after 6:30pm, maybe closer to 6:45pm, a rush of people went to the gate and started boarding. So, they finally announced they plan to take off about 7pm which would still get us into Denver with enough time to make our connection. So, we get on the plane and sit and sit. Of course. So, we didn't actually get off the ground until like 8pm, which is now cutting it really close for us to catch our next flight. They did give the plane free Direct TV for the ride for an apology. I watched some episodes of Law & Order: SVU that I don't remember having seen before. That was nice. So, we landed and taxied and at the moment when everyone hurries to stand up and wait to get off the plane, we had 20 minutes before our next plane was to take off. We get off, find the TV to find our gate. Of course, we were at like B30 and needed to be at B79. So, off we go running down the airport. I love that Denver (and others) have the moving walkways (flat escalators), it really helped! We asked two United airlines employees if our bags were going to make our flight since we were rushed. They said that more than likely if we made it our bags would made it. We trusted them for the most part. We got to B79, scanned our tickets and we were safe - we still had a long walk to the plane - but we made it on. As we were in line to get on the plane (no jet bridge) we saw they were loading the bags, we thought we saw our luggage so we felt good. Phew. We arrived safely "home" to Pasco at 11:15pm and make our way to baggage claim. We see very few bags on going by on the baggage carousel. Then, the airport worker put out the sign "last bag". Great. So, ours weren't on the plane. We had to go down to the ticket counter along with some other folks and wait for someone to help us. The same airport worker finally came down to do our claims for delayed baggage. They said it normally comes the next day and someone would bring it to us. Ok, so better that we got to sleep in our own bed. We hadn't eaten though since we planned on eating in Denver and that didn't work out. Even in tri-cities, there's not much open at 11:50pm. Luckily, Jack in the Box was open and we got some food and made our way to our home - got here just about 1am. It was nice to sleep in our own bed. I am glad we ran down the airport to catch our flight instead of hanging out in Denver. I felt bad for commenting on some other folks I had seen sprinting in the Denver airport on our trip out. Yeah, don't comment on those folks, it's happens! :) The next day, we waited and waited for the airline to call about our bags. I called the information hotline about 11am and they were still "searching for our bags". A little after 1pm, I got a call that our bags were in Pasco and someone will deliver them between 2:30pm and 4:30pm. That's when I replied, "I love you!" to the stranger on the other end of the phone line. I wonder if he gets that often in that line of work. About 4:15pm, a little gray car pulled up and a lady drug our bags out of her trunk. The car had no indication it was from the airport and she had no identifying clothing either, but she had our bags and that's when I told a complete stranger in person, "I love you!" I suppose that sounds a little odd as I recount this story, but it is what it is. I was thankful to have my stuff back! So thankful that strangers got to know of my love for their dedicated work to bring my stuff to me. And that's the story of when I told a stranger, "I love you!"
I have a lot of pictures from our trip that I need to organize and get posted - so more about our trip coming soon. The rest of the trip was good and no drama! Only a little snafu on the way home, but all is well with my new red shoes and my souvenirs that spent an extra night on the road.
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