For the third year in a row, I’ve headed out to Arizona State University for the Desert Nights, Rising Stars conference. This is the only writing-focused conference I regularly attend (though I do have intentions of attending more in the future). It’s always an adventure and a lot of fun–and a good excuse to be out of the office and out of state in the middle of February.
February 18, 2015 – Wednesday, departure day, T-1 day to the opening of DNRS 2015
It’s not like my day started out inauspiciously. I got up at 5 to grab a shower before heading out to Detroit Metro (my father drove). I watched a little bit of WXYZ’s morning news with my mother before we headed out. Dad and I listened to NPR on the way to the airport, like we usually do in the morning. Lots of ISIS/ISIL in the news (as usual). I chattered about how the only thing I was really worried about was making sure that my luggage made it from Plane A to Plane B, since this is the first time I’ve flown and had to change planes–most of my flights in the past have been direct, or have been instances where I’ve never had to get off the plane.
My flight of out Metro was scheduled to leave at 8:10 AM eastern, and I made it to Metro by 6:45–plenty of time to check my suitcase and make it through security. I was worried about the latter–the lines looked pretty long when I walked in and headed to check my bag, so I asked a Delta staff member if the screening checkpoints downstairs in McNamara terminal were open (they were, but only for TSA pre-screened passengers, which I’m not).
This having been said, guess who was directed to go through the TSA pre-screened line anyway? This chick. It’s kind of nice not to have to drag everything out of your bags and not have to take off your shoes.
Of course, it was after that when things started to go wrong in my day.
I went hunting for a cup of coffee and instead of the Starbucks I was expecting to see dead center on concourse A, all I ended up finding was a Caribou Coffee–no big deal, just not what I was expecting. I grabbed a froofy drink and headed for my gate, thinking that I’d get there and only have to wait for maybe ten or fifteen minutes before the boarding cattle call started.
Oh how ridiculously wrong I was.
The plane was late getting into Metro for starters, so they were still deplaning the passengers from the last flight when we were supposed to start boarding. Okay, no big deal–I was scheduled to get on a flight at LAX about 45 minutes after our scheduled landing time there, so I figured I was okay. They cleaned our plane, got all 200-some passengers on board, and pulled away from the gate maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later than intended.
Of course, it’s snowing in Detroit and absolutely freezing, so we head off to get sprayed down with de-icing fluid.
Then the captain gets on the intercom and tells us that they have a weird indicator light going on in the cockpit, so we’re going to have to go back to the gate to have maintenance check it out–just to make sure we’re okay to fly.
Long story short, my flight that was supposed to leave Detroit at 8:10 didn’t leave until 10:10.
Needless to say, I missed my connection at LAX. Delta was originally going to re-route me to Seattle and then to Phoenix from there (with me arriving in Phoenix a little before 10PM local time), but after trekking from Terminal 6 to Terminal 5 and finding a Delta ticket agent, I managed to snag a guaranteed direct flight from LAX to Phoenix for 7:45 this evening and I’m on standby for a flight leaving at 3:40 this afternoon.
Cross your fingers for me–I’d like to be in Phoenix this evening rather than late tonight, but we’ll see what happens.
Conference starts tomorrow.
Update: I was able to get a seat on the 3:40 flight and have safely made it to my hotel. On the shuttle ride from Skyharbor, I met another conference attendee, one who’s come from farther than I did! Louis flew in from Hong Kong for the conference; it’s his first time. Fingers crossed that he enjoys his time here as much as I have for the past few years.
