The Happiest Trip on Earth–The Bonus Day

MSP—>STL; 8,316 steps

And so we arrive at the “Bonus Day” of our trip. Trying to look for a silver lining, I will say that if we hadn’t had to spend the night in Bloomington, MN, we wouldn’t have seen this cool airport art at MSP. That’s the best I can do.

We left our hotel on the first shuttle out, at 4:30 a.m. We were not taking any chances on not getting to the airport on time! Once we arrived, we went to Caribou Coffee to use our meal vouchers for breakfast. Fortunately, we had enough money to each have a coffee and a breakfast sandwich!

We cautiously made our way to our gate, and it seemed like we would be leaving as (re)scheduled. There was a brief moment where the gate agent seemed doubtful, and started trying to put people on alternate flights, but then they decided they were worried for nothing, so we just sat and waited for our boarding time.

The flight wasn’t very full, so we boarded pretty quickly. We buckled in for what was scheduled to be a relatively short flight and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Because the same issue that had delayed the flight the night before (lack of a first officer) was still a problem. They finally found one on an inbound flight, and I assume she hurried over as fast as possible after she landed, and she was cheered by the entire plane when she stepped through the door. I’m not going to lie…I help my breath while they did the pre-flight check because at that point, I was pretty much assuming they were going to find a mechanical issue. They didn’t, though, and we finally took off (after I had already watched most of the first Downton Abbey movie).

We made it home without further complications, and we didn’t even have to wait too long for our luggage.

And that brings us to the end of our trip. It was an amazing experience, even with the trouble we had on the way home. I’m so glad I had this special time with Turkey and Bunny to celebrate their accomplishments before they move on to the next big thing!

The Happiest Trip on Earth–Day Four

LAX—>MSP; 14,650 steps

So this is the point where our trip started to fall apart a bit. We had a fairly early flight from L.A. to Detroit, so we were up at 4:30 (I was up even earlier, because I was pretty nervous about going back to LAX). We called our Uber without any trouble, got checked in with only a little trouble, and made it through security.

We headed to our gate in Terminal 3 (which is apparently the “new” terminal, as in, not quite done…there were very few food options, and they were doing construction on an escalator the whole time we were there). I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on around me, until I heard the word “cancelled” over the loudspeaker…yes, it was our flight. After a moment of panic, we headed to the help desk to find out what we needed to do. They put us on a flight back through Minneapolis-St. Paul, which was fine, but the flight was scheduled to leave many hours later than we had planned…did I mention there was almost nothing to do in that terminal? They gave us meal vouchers for our trouble…which covered the cost of two meals…did I mention there were three of us? Anyway, we had a very long, very boring, very uncomfortable day in LAX, where we tried really hard not to fall asleep for too long with some success. If I never have to go back to that airport again, it will be too soon!

I did still have one goal before we left California…I was really hoping to catch a glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. We didn’t see it on our arrival, but shortly after our plane took off from LAX, Turkey poked me and told me to look out the window…we had swung out just enough that I actually got to see it!

While I was disappointed not to be landing in Detroit (I had a heard a lot of buzz about a cool fountain, and I was also hoping we might find a Tim Hortons there), it was nice to see Minneapolis-St. Paul again (or so I thought).

We managed to get to Wendy’s (directly across from our departure gate no less) right before they closed, and food improved our mood greatly. Until…

Our flight home, which was schedule to leave at 9:55 p.m. was delayed. To 9:00 a.m. The next day. And that delayed flight was the last flight to St. Louis that day, so it’s not like we had any other options. So I figured out how to request the hotel room they let us have, and after a very long wait, we finally got on the hotel shuttle (at around 11:00 p.m.) and made it to the hotel for a very short sleep.

Did we ever make it home?

The Happiest Trip on Earth–Day One

STL—>MSP—>LAX; 13,823 steps

Are you ready for a look at the “Happiest Trip on Earth?!?”

To celebrate Turkey’s and Bunny’s graduation, the three of us went on a trip to California, where we visited Disney California Adventure and Disneyland! Two weeks ago, we set out from St. Louis’ Lambert Airport:

Even I, an airport novice, could tell that Lambert is a very small airport:

It was the first time either Turkey or Bunny had flown, and it’s probably been 25 years since I have, so it was quite an adventure for us!

We had a decent layover in Minneapolis-St. Paul, so we had plenty of time to explore the airport, which we all really liked. It was big and bright and busy, and almost like a mall, with shops and restaurants everywhere. There was plenty to see (and lots of moving sidewalks, which I love, because they’re so much fun), so the time passed quickly.

We stopped at Shake Shack (another first for us) for lunch, and we absolutely loved it!

I also got to introduce Turkey and Bunny to Caribou Coffee (something I really enjoyed when I lived in Chicago)…we’re very excited that they’re slated to come to the St. Louis area soon!