Cancelled Flights, Rental Cars, Babies and Puppies (11/25/18)

When we went to bed last night we knew there was a chance of winter weather impacting our trip back to Chicago, but neither of us was worried. As the forecast for more dire, Jarmon and I both mused that we may be renting a car in morning. For better or worse, we are some of the most chill people you will ever meet— and the idea of heading to the airport on one of the busiest days of the year with a baby and a dog and a blizzard in the forecast didn’t really phase us.

So, when our flight got preemptively canceled at 9am the only emotion we felt was dread— at the prospect of spending eight hours in a car drinking caffeine rather than one hour on a plane drinking wine.

I tried to change our flight to either an earlier one today or an early one on Monday morning, but the Southwest app wasn’t working. There were multiple flights with seats available, but the app kept giving an error message saying to call for assistance. The problem? The wait time was well over an hour. I reached out on social media— only to be told that there were no flights available until Tuesday. Obviously that wasn’t going to cut it, so we canceled our tickets and booked a car.

We didn’t realize it at the time, but we got extremely lucky in scoring a car (minivan) at all. We got one of the last two vehicles left at Latrobe airport on Sunday afternoon. Jarmon and DD went over to get it while I packed. In looking at the forecast, we figured we’d get to Chicago before the snow if we left by 2p.

We left at 2:05p— and we nailed it. Once we got out of Pennsylvania there was hardly anyone on the road. It was honestly hard to believe it was the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. Plus, it was 50 degrees most of the trip so weather wasn’t an issue. We legit made record time— including a 45 minute stop to change a diaper, walk a dog and pick up some caffeine.

It started to rain at some point in Indiana, but we never saw snow until we were well into the city. And we got home well after our flight would have landed, so honestly, I’m not really sure if the cancellation was justified. But, I guess it’s the price you pay for traveling over the holidays.

At the end of the day, we saved (quite) a few bucks by cancelling our (overpriced) holiday weekend plane tickets. Found ourselves in a situation where Jarmon could listen to the Steelers game in its entirety. Took Arabella on her longest road trip to date. Introduced her to two new states (Ohio and Indiana). And proved that we can be just as spontaneous with a baby in tow as we were when it was just us and a puppy.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Arabella and Baxter both slept the entire trip. And we got a parking space right in front of our house for the rental that we need to take back in the morning.

Moral of the story? Holiday travel is only stressful if you let it be. And if you don’t stress— you just might find that traveling over the holidays is some of the easiest traveling you’ll do all year (even when there is a blizzard warning).

Also, here’s Arabella’s 7-month photo, which I made sure to take before heading out into the “blizzard.” (DD spent the weekend teaching her how to clap– pretty cute, right?)