With plans of going back to Scobey to spend the weekend with my parents, sister and her family, and brother, Levi, and his family, I woke up at 3:30a.m. Thanksgiving morning to hop a plan to Billings, Montana. The plan was to have a 45 minute layover in Denver and make it to Billings by 9:30am. Upon arrival my other brother, Zach, and his family were going to drive over from Bozeman just to see me and have brunch before I drove 5 hours up to Scobey. Little did I know that this was not the way it would go. It all started when we were on the plane in time to take off at 6:00 am only to find out that there was little mechanical error that took an hour and half to get situated. By the time we finally took off, I knew that I was going to miss my connecting flight. Knowing that there was nothing I could do and holding back my emotions, I awaiting landing before I tried to figure out what I was going to do. It may not normally be as big of a deal to miss a flight like this but we are talking “flying to MONTANA” where only a couple flights go out a day, not to mention it was Thanksgiving day and all flights were pretty much full. When I landed, I found out Levi and his family weren’t going to make the trek to Scobey because all the roads were closed around them due to a big snow storm. Zach then informed me that they wouldn’t make it over to Billings either. He suggested that I maybe just see if they would reroute me to Bozeman and I could just stay with them just in case I couldn’t make it up to Scobey. What to do, what to do. Plans of seeing all my family were tossed to the way side. Still undecided, I waited in the customer service line for a half hour in order to get my new flight info. When I got up to the desk, they had already booked me a flight to Billings but it didn’t leave until 6:00pm. The girl next to me was going to Billings too but it was her final destination for the weekend; They didn’t pre-book her and there were no flights left, so they were going to send her to Bozeman. Well, my decision was made. I told them to give her my ticket and I would go to Bozeman. After all the paperwork was completed, I made my choked up phone calls to everyone to tell them the change in plans.
I arrived in Bozeman around 3:15, in time to go to my sister-in-law’s parents house for Thanksgiving dinner. Although I was very sad I wasn’t going to get home, I was very glad to still be able to spend the weekend with some family. The hardest part of it all is that I usually only make it home once a year and when I do I need to see as many people as possible. So this trip didn’t quite work out that way and I wasn’t sure when the next time would be. Despite all of that, I had a good time with Zach and his family, got to see my sister and her family on their drive through Bozeman, back to Boise, and got to spend an evening with my bestest buds from high school. It was just the beginning of the trip and the end that made it a little dramatic and unpleasant. I had the joy of getting the flu yesterday morning before getting on the plane back to Chicago. Puking on an airplane is one of the worst travel experiences you can have. I had a 3 hour layover in Denver so I was at least able to rest up on the airport floor in between flights of sitting up straight, through stomach cramps and nausea. It took quite a bit for me to make it through the day and 10 hours later, I stumbled through my front door, dropped my bags and crawled in to bed. I needed some rest since I had to work at 11 the next day. Hmmmmm…..maybe this trip just wasn’t quite meant to be ;)
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