What’s the worst travel experience you’ve ever had?
It was the best of times it was the worst of times.
Delaware
My time honored axiom of traveling is this. If everything went according to plan, what stories would we have to tell. I could be telling this story and in the middle remember something just as bad or worse. Then again these are stories you tell with a smile, despite what transpired.
One late winter day, we were in Delaware and we had a flight from Philadelphia back to Portland that afternoon. There were some talk of snow in the forecast., but we made the drive through the state of Delaware up to Pennsylvania thinking it wouldn’t be that bad.
After about a half hour drive, we ran into a full scale blizzard. It was just me and my daughter and a half million chickens . I don’t love to drive but conditions were horrible.. You could only see a few yards in front of you.. Not to be deterred, the airlines told us our flight would be leaving relatively on time. And we had no reason not to believe them.
The snow continued to bombard the east coast corridor as our departure time kept creeping to later and later in the day.
Marina and I still talk about this abandoned weekend like it was an adventure we both went through together. The snow never stopped and our plane, never took off. We ended up sleeping in the Philadelphia airport that night.
Somewhere along the line, we perfected the fine art of sleeping on an airport bench, using our coats as covers. The airline gave us a $30 food credit but none of the food kiosks were open because you couldn’t make it to the airport. I don’t remember when we made our flight. It all blurred together. The airlines attitude seems to be let them eat cake.
I do remember how sore I was from sleeping on a hard bench, barely sleeping as I kept an eye on my daughter.  She is a tough cookie and and probably adapted better than I.
Berlin
I had a similar experience in Berlin recently. It was the first time I ever took Icelandair. A computer virus took down the reservation system and I was told my flight would be moved to the following day. Yes it sounds like a catastrophe in the making, but it’s not the first time that happened to me and it probably won’t be the last.
Unfortunately, all my belongings were already packed into the airline baggage system, so I didn’t have a change of clothes and other essentials for living life.
Undeterred, I got on the Berlin train system and headed back to my son’s place in the Neukölln district. My flight the next day was scheduled for six in the morning, which meant I had to leave for the airport at three in the morning.
I figured I’d sleep on the airplane the next day. We ended up going out that night and staying up past midnight. It’s all one big adventure..
I figured the airline would be reimbursing me for that evening as well as incidentals I needed to get through that day
I went to book a flight to Berlin yesterday, and I passed on a flight on Icelandair. I wanted to like this airline so much, but they refused to reimburse me claiming an act of god. . I spent my entire career in information technology and it was our job to have backup systems and systems to prevent computer viruses. We were responsible when the system went down..
Seattle
With each of our three kids, I’ve climbed Mount St Helens so why not have an ill-fated adventure with each. Not to leave out our middle daughter I was driving her back to college as well as a doctors appointment in Seattle and chaos broke out.
On the drive up to Seattle I got a phone call from my work. I got fired (massive layoffs) from my job over the phone. While taking our daughter to a doctors appointment. The entire drive up there it rained cats and dogs. Every time I’m driving now and it rains hard. I refer to it as Riley weather.
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
Gute Reise
I would love to hear you opinion as well