I’m pretty fortunate in that I get to travel a fair amount for work. Not so much that I go crazy, but enough that it’s fun and I get to see and know new places. I love traveling, and I love coming home. And if I can’t get home? Not happy.

But if my string of luck continues to be bad? Then it just becomes funny.

This last trip that I took was uneventful travel-wise until about 1 PM Pacific when I got a text from United. My afternoon flight home had been canceled. I immediately called United and they said oh yeah, we booked you on a flight leaving at 6 AM tomorrow. I said, oh no you didn’t, I am going home TODAY, I already checked out of the hotel and I need a flight home today, not tomorrow. They weren’t able to help so I canceled the reservation and switched to Southwest, then grabbed all my stuff and caught a taxi. My flight left an hour and a half earlier than I planned, so it was frantic chipmunk time.

I got to the airport, got through security, etc etc and was feeling pretty good at this point. I had about 30 minutes until I was supposed to board, and I’d get home only 10 minutes later than my original flight. It wasn’t direct, but that didn’t have me worried — my connection was through Vegas and I’d never had an issue there. Whew!

Then I happened to glance up at the arrivals/departures board… and my flight to Vegas was delayed. Not just delayed, but really delayed. It was now taking off from SFO at the same time that my connecting flight from Vegas to home would take off, so that was no good. I headed over to the Southwest counter and stood in a line, where the attendant was already aware of the issue and not interested in hearing my professional, grown up, and tear-free wailing about how this wasn’t going to work.

I wanted to go HOME, so while Southwest wrangled flights, I pulled out my computer and started looking for other options. There weren’t any for less than $1000 and it was getting later and later in the day. Fortunately Southwest found a flight that connected through LAX, and I’d get home only three hours later than planned — which really? That’s pretty good. My stress level started to drop, I got some tea, and eventually, I was on a plane. I was very happy to be on a plane.

A few words of praise for Southwest, before the story gets more interesting:

1. Props to the desk attendants, who were undoubtedly putting up with a lot of stressed out cranky people, kept smiling, and still got us where we needed to go.
2. When you don’t have to leave the plane on a Southwest connection, you can get yourself a different seat. I moved from the back of the plane in a middle seat to row 5 with a window seat… and it was perfectly allowed.

The flights themselves were uneventful, at least until we landed. We were on the ground and almost to the gate when the plane lost power. We sat there for a moment, the power came back up, we got to the gate, and we lost power again. Once it came back up, we all got off the plane, and headed to the train that takes you from the terminals to the main terminal at DIA. I was so glad to be almost home…. and then the train stopped. Not only did it stop, I was in the front car and when I looked down the track, there was a train coming towards us on the same track! Fortunately the other car stopped too, we took a slight turn, and got to our station.

I half expected to find my car with flat tires in the parking garage, or that the battery would be dead somehow. But apparently my string of bad luck had run out, the car was fine, the drive home was fine, and I got home about 4 hours later than planned. Not bad, and I was happy to be home.

Hardly the trip from hell, but the sheer string of events was pretty funny.

This button was sitting on the Southwest counter at SFO. I was tempted to pick it up, but I didn’t — I just took a picture.

Lesson learned this trip:

Book flights earlier than late afternoon/evening when possible, so that if you get cancellations or delays you have more options for getting home when you want.