Okay. So, now my little journey has been over for more weeks than it lasted, and I haven't finished the narrative. Which is fine, I guess. It's not that interesting, really. Still, I have other stuff I want to get to so let's get it out of the way.
When I landed in Grand Junction some weeks ago now, I found that, as I had feared, my bag was unavailable at the baggage claim.
Sadness.
But, I didn't mind that much. Afterall, my bag deserved its own fun little adventure. Figuring it had landed the night before, I walked over to the United Express counter to inquire after its fate.
25 minutes later, someone showed up at the counter to deal with customers (for an airport, albeit a small one, serving a general populace of approximately 100,000 people, you'd never suspect Walker Field Regional Airport to be as ass backwards as it is).
Turns out, surprise surprise, my bag didn't make it to GJ after all. Of course, I figured it was probably still in Denver. Oh no, that would make sense.
My bag decided it would rather hit the slopes than join me on my trip, so it hopped the plane to Eagle, CO. Now, for those of you who are not familiar with the geography of Colorado, Eagle is a town in the mountains about midway between Grand Junction and Denver. Geographically, my bag had travelled about half way to where it needed to go. Unfortunately, in air travel terms, it pretty much went 180 degrees the wrong way. Eagle, like GJ, has a regional airport, which means that, yes, it's essentially a dead end. There are no flights from either place to other regional airports. Way to go, United. The excuse was that the label had been misread (some other bag ended up there too). Naturally, this would make perfect sense if the airport codes were similar, and since GJT and EGE do share a common letter, I have to assume that was the cause. Good one, guys.
But hey, I was on vacation. I ended up getting my bag at THE END OF THE NEXT DAY, nearly 48 hours after I was originally supposed to land. Still, I was at home, so it was no big deal.
What WAS a big deal, apparently, was the massive storm in the mountains that diverted all plans bound for Aspen to Grand Junction. This was amusing to no end. Baggage claim was full of angry Aspenites (peroxide bleached hair, fur jackets, absurdly expensive hand bags, etc) all whining into their cell phones in that annoying valley girl tone:
"Uhhh, we're, like, in this awful little town called, I don't know, Grand Junction? Oh my god, it's SUCH a hick town. I hope they didn't, like, lose my bag. My feet hurt SO much. I just hope they didn't lose the bag with my hiking boots, because these heels are KILLING me. I guess they, like, charted a bus or something? It's so stupid..."
And so on. This was, to say the least, intensely gratifying, in a way. It must suck to be those people.
And that was it. GJ was great, played with dogs, shot some birds, and relaxed. Chicago was also great, crashed at Mike and Liz's and played waaaaay too much Wii...made a Wii Mii. That was sweet. Then, Sarah surprised me at the airport in Charlotte and stayed with me for a few days, which was wonderful. So, in a sense, I had two weeks of break.
And then things went to crap. But that's another story.
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