Today we flew home to Charlottesville from Sacramento visa Atlanta. As we were getting ready to leave the plane in Charlottesville it occurred to me that this was our last standby flight, the end of an era. I quickly took this picture of Jared and Lydia before we got off the plane.
Comfort Plus for the last flight home to Charlottesville. We also got first class for our flight from Salt Lake City to Sacramento, we will certainly miss those perks. When Mark's Mom talks about our first trip to Paris her favorite part of the trip is her flight home, a direct flight from Paris to Salt Lake in Business (First) Class. Even after getting to use it a few times I still feel out of place there, but we all certainly enjoyed it.
In true standby fashion, we ended up coming home a different way than originally planned. There is a direct United flight from Sacramento to Dulles and then its just a quick 20 minute flight from Dulles to Charlottesville. This was our original plan but as we looked at flights before going to bed we decided to try the Delta flights. (Sacramento to Atlanta and Atlanta to Charlottesville) My sister Susanna drove us to the airport and accidentally took the exit for the wrong terminal so we lost some important minutes. Most often we do not check bags when we fly but this time we had to since we had items to drop off at Sue's. The line to check bags was really backed up which added more stress, we got to the airport in decent time but there were not nearly enough Delta agents. As we waited we saw a few people go straight up to the counter, bypassing the line entirelyand for the first time ever I voiced my irritance at how slow things were going. That's not to say I haven't been irritated before but normally only Mark can hear me. We were not the only ones frustrated by how things were moving. Eventually we got our bags dropped off and we rushed up to TSA. We got to TSA a few minutes before they began boarding our flight. Luckily the security lines were moving really well and we got to the gate as they were about halfway done with boarding and we all managed to get seats on the flight headed East.
Once we landed in Atlanta we hurried over to our next flight to see if we were going to make it on. At first it looked like just 2 of us would make it on this flight and then the other 2 would take the later flight but in a stroke of luck Jared, Lydia and I made it on. We also made it to this flight as they were about halfway done with boarding. It was very close today. We left my Mom's house at 5:00 am and the three of us made it home around 5:00 pm with all our luggage. After a long wait at the airport Mark got a seat on the second flight to Charlottesville and will be here soon.
It's only been the last year or so that we have had United flight benefits and it has helped us out of some tight spots over the last year. Today it felt fitting to fly into Charlottesville from Atlanta for our last standby flight, back to how it all started. I remember my first standby trip was to go visit my friend Tara in Texas. She now lives in California and we actually met up this past weekend. That trip to Texas did not go well as far as flying goes and flying standby is not an easy way to go but it certainly provided our family with opportunities to do things we would have never experienced otherwise. Mark lost a lot of sleep and endured a lot of stress trying to make sure we all made it onto flights and made it back home. He has flight paths/flight times memorized for most airlines and CHO will be very sad to see him go. It will be interesting to hear how Jared and Lydia remember these years when we talk about it years from now. Last I checked Costa Rica was their favorite trip and Mark's too I think. Mine was Iceland. It was so great to visit friends and family and explore beautiful, interesting places something we could not have done without flying standby. Mark made sure we got our moneys worth but I think we are all ready to put this behind us.
The other day we were talking with family about our flights and Lydia was nearby. Later that day she verified with me that we indeed would have confirmed seats and that when we said we were leaving we were really leaving and we were following the original itinerary. It's kind of a new concept for her. We are looking forward to confirmed seats but are truly happy and grateful we had this experience.
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