I spent Christmas in Michigan with the family, and it was great.  Getting there and back, however, was a different story.  Delta lost my luggage on the way there, and then rescheduled my returning flight for the next day at 6am.  I officially hate Delta!

It was ridiculous.  When contacting the Delta/Northwest baggage hotline they said they could send an email to the Detroit Metro baggage office to see about the status of my bag.  They said, quote, “we can’t actually call them because we don’t have their phone number.”

Wait, what?  The baggage hotline for  a major airline can’t look up the number for an airport’s baggage office?  Are you kidding me?

Adding insult to injury, they are now charging $20 to check a bag.  Thanks, I just gave you $20 to lose my bag.

Then on the way back it was quite an adventure.  First, the nosecone of the plane was scratched and they had to replace it.  Then, taxiing to the runway we hit a pothole.  The captain got on the intercom and basically told us “That pothole you felt back there was nothing, everything is fine.”

But it wasn’t.  Apparently as we were taxiing around some passengers heard a strange vibration noise from the right engine.  Then the stewardess heard it.  So they stopped the plane and had to get everything looked at.  When we taxied back to the gate and the pilot and mechanics came to the cabin to investigate I kind of knew we weren’t taking off that night.  I didn’t want to fly on that plane anyway – as all this was going down one of the flight attendants said to the other attendant that she would “rather just get off this plane.”  When the FLIGHT ATTENDANT says that, you know you have a bit to worry about.

So we had to go back to the airport, wait on line for an hour, get a hotel voucher for $13 (which was useless because everything was closed), board a shuttle for the hotel, and get 3 hours of sleep before waking up at 3am to make the shuttle for the newly rescheduled 6am flight.  PLUS, adding even more insult to injury, they didn’t let us have access to our checked baggage.  ANOTHER night without any clothes and toiletries.  After we boarded our rescheduled flight we had to wait 2 hours on the runway because they forgot to stock our plane with any beverages or food.  Didn’t much matter to me because they only give any worthwhile food to first class anyway.

In sum:  I hate Delta.  They gave us a $100 voucher for future use with their airline.  Thanks but no thanks.  In another few months all that $100 is going to be good for is checking a bag.

Well, enough about that.

I’m currently up in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, for a weeklong snowboarding trip with my friends Lori, Barb, and Val.  We are staying at Barb’s fantastic apartment for free.  New powder is expected for New Year’s Day.  I’m so excited!

I will update hopefully with some more news about the trip.

I’ve gotta say, even though it’s nice to travel, I will be so happy to finally get home after this trip and get back into a regular routine and schedule.  I just want to relax, and for me it’s hard to do that when I’m traveling – especially sports traveling like surf trips and snowboard trips, where people want to make the most of their time and you can’t always make your own schedule.