It has to get better now. . . We repeated that phrase MANY times on our what turned into our 24 hour travel down to Texas. Seeing our awesome family, visiting Magnolia Market, eating Tex-Mex and real bbq, we had been looking forward to this trip for weeks! That was what we had to keep reminding ourselves as we went through this hellish journey.
We left at 2 PM, which gave us plenty of time to make our 12:45 AM flight. Driving 5 hours down to the Las Vegas with a 4 month old baby, no problem, we just did that for Thanksgiving and Baby L had been perfect so we weren't worried. Well Mother Nature had a different plan for us. Keiton, who is from Star Vally, where it snows like 300 of the 365 days of the year said this was the worst storm that he has ever driven in :/
We barley got out of Utah County, when traffic came to a complete stop on the freeway. We sat there for OVER AN HOUR and we didn't have any service so we had no idea what in the heck was going on. Let me tell you, that was the most annoying hour and when my road rage started raising. We finally started crawling and pasted the culprits, a semi that had spun off the road and about 5 cars that got stuck.
The snow was hitting SO HARD, there were times when we finally got up to 40 miles per hour and let me tell you, we felt like we were flying. The roads were so bad, we counted over 75 cars that spun off the road. Some crashed into rails, some fell into ditches and I was so sure we were going to be next. In fact, there was time when we started spinning. I was SO scared but luckily there were no cars around us and Keiton was calm in a crisis and corrected the car. We were fine and Baby L was sleeping like a log in the backseat but, I cried for the next 30 minutes. It was so hard, the roads were so bad we couldn't stop or else our car would get stuck, so we had to keep going at snail pace, passing so many cars/semi-trucks that spun off and were stuck.
Around Cedar City, right as the roads were the worst, Google Maps informed us that we would be arriving at 12:40 AM. Shoot. There was no way we were going to make it. We were beyond frustrated but we couldn't stop so we crawled on. Finally we dropped out of the mountains and the rain turned into ice. The hatred I have for snow increased exponentially and we vowed we were NEVER going to drive in the snow EVER again.
Luckily Keiton speeds like crazy so we were able to shave off the time we would be arriving to 12:05. There was hope. We could do this if we ran like crazy. We had it all planned out and we were ready to make this flight! We pulled up, Keiton took care of the valet, I took Baby L and ran to security. We rushed through, Keiton took Baby L and I ran down a flight of stairs, to the train that took us the terminal C, up a flight of stairs and all the way down the hall, to the very last gate. Stupid Gate 26. Out of breath, we reached the counter and there was no worker in sight. What the heck, it was 12:30 in the dot, we had 5 minutes until they shut the doors. We made it, the plane was there, but did they load early?
We had to hunt down a worker but we found out our flight was delayed. No notice anywhere, would have been good to know. We sit down and every couple of hours there was an announcement "your pilot is stuck in a snow storm in Colorado but will be here in 2 hours." 2 hours would come and they would announce the pilot never left and would be delayed another 2 hours. The annoying thing was they knew our flight was going to be delayed even longer because the stupid pilot wasn't even in the same state, but they NEVER told us until after we were supposed to leave. Finally on the screen it said our flight was cancelled, they never came on the intercom to make an announcement. STUPID FRONTIER thought they could nonchalantly hide the fact we weren't getting on a plane. Well we noticed, we all noticed.
I have NEVER seen so many angry people. We were all FROZEN (the LV air port doesn't believe in heating) sleeping on the nasty floor, we were tired and upset. Frontier wouldn't do anything to compensate their cancelled flight. Not a thing. They were not transparent the whole night and not accommodating. FRONTIER is literally the worst EVER. We ended up booking a panicked last second flight, that was so dang expensive. But hey we were going to make it to Texas, even if it was the last thing we did.
Our new flight took off at 8:30 AM. After a long night, freezing cold and so unbelievably tired we got on the plane and we were on our way!! "It has to get better now." Right when we finished that sentence we hit some pretty bad turbulence. Just our luck...
But somehow Baby L was PERFECT, the WHOLE time. Singing and sleeping that whole time! Even though it was the worst, scariest, and most frustrating experience of my entire life we saw so many little miracles. The fact that Baby L didn't scream in the awful weather, or plane ride in itself was huge. But when we went over to the Southwest counter to buy our tickets they needed Baby L's birth certificate. Of course I don't travel with that. So with no proof of birthday we couldn't get a ticket for her and we had to turn around and go back home. BUT somehow I happened to grab her insurance card, which has her birthday printed right on it! I don't know how that happened but that was a HUGE miracle! Also the biggest miracle of them all, we made it safe and sound! It made our arrival and seeing family that much sweeter!
Moral of the story, Frontier is the WORST most unaccommodating airline ever and miracles happen! We are currently in the process of making memories in Texas, so stay tuned for the adventures to come!
