San Antonio Blues

I just returned from a business trip to San Antonio. I went to the National ELCA Youth Gathering (Lutheran conference attended by 16,000 students) to exhibit YouthWorks mission trips. I went with Barb, the wife of one of the Team Leaders (one of the top dogs at YW) and we had a great time there. But traveling is a whole other story.

We left Minneapolis at 3 PM on Tuesday. I arrived to the airport around 1:15 because I am now paranoid of missing my flight (see my CA story!) and I was counting down the minutes until Barb arrived so that we could check in. She arrived, seriously, like 60 minutes before take off. But we were able to check our bags and head on in-thank goodness!!! We had 4 bags to check: 2 personal bags, one other bag full of materials for the conference and then a 6 foot tall tube that held our banners for our booth. And this piece was bulky. When we checked in, the attendant took the three bags and told us to drop the tube off at another location for oversized bags. We did that and gave it to a lady there. Then we went to our gate.

Our flight to Dallas (on Northwest) was fine. But when we landed, Dallas was in the middle of a tunderstorm, but we didn't have much turbulance at all - thank the Lord! But we had to sit at the gate for about a half hour because of potential lightning strikes. They did not want any ground crew to get hurt. Our connecting flight to San Antonio (on American) was at 7 PM. We were supposed to land at 5:30 - it is now 6:30 and we're getting nervous. We finally get off the plane, find our terminal (we needed to take a shuttle) and run to the gate. Only to find that we are not bording yet (phew!). After about an hour we get on the plane only to sit for 2 more hours!! Get this - we didn't have a pilot! How do you NOT have a pilot? So our 7 PM flight to San Antonio (that is only to take 45 minutes) to arrive at 8 finally lands at 11 PM.

This is when we realize that our car rental company closes its doors at 11 PM. Great. We tried calling to see if someone was there, but no one was. Now this meant we had to get a taxi to take us to our airport. But after we get our luggage. Remember the large tube I mentioned? Yeah, it didn't arrive. We waited and waited and waited and at about 12:30 AM we decide to forget it and get a cab. We get a cab who pulls up without his headlights. When I say "Sir, your headlights aren't on" he grunts with a smile (he looked confused), put our bags in and $20 later (cash only - now this is my personal stash. I have a company credit card to use, but can't use it here) drops us off at our hotel (note, after we almost ran into a concrete wall, he put his lights on).

Thank the Lord that our hotel was actually there and our reservations still intack! We get to our room, call the lost luggage folks (was on hold for 15 minutes with the saying "Your call will be taken in approximately 5 minutes" over and over again) and went to bed around 1:45 AM.

I woke up at 6:30 AM (yes, 6:30) to get ready. We had a lot to do because we needed to be at our booth at 9 AM. I called the car rental place at 7 when they opened and we transfered our reservation to the downtown location. But I couldn't call them until 7:30 AM. After talking to them and calling to check on our bags that still were not found, they picked us up at 8:30 to take us to our rental car. Then we had to find the conference center and get set up.

We arrived around 9:30 AM (and we weren't the only ones getting set up) and had to figure out a way to have a banner. We ripped off the plastic table cloth on one of our tables and in magic marker wrote YOUTHWORKS in big bold letters. Not the prettiest, but it would do. Then, at 10 AM I called about our missing banner and THANK THE LORD it was found and being delivered to our hotel!!! Finally, things were looking up.

The week went great. We were there Wednesday- Saturday and met tons of great people and handed out a lot of information. We went to the Alamo (boring) and other missions around the city. We had a great time.

This morning, we got up around 4:30 AM for our 7:20 flight to Dallas. We dropped off the car, successfully (after making one wrong exit), checked in successfully (after telling the man that we had a connecting flight to Dallas and that our final destination was Minneapolis) and arrived to both places on time (yes!!!). But in Minneapolis, at the baggage claim area, we waited. Our bags never came. So, it's now 6 hours later and our bags still haven't been found. I'm off to Target to buy some much needed supplies. Urrgg. Now I know why people pack light. I may have to try to do that :)