David and Goliath

This has been a delayed post, sorry about that, but whatevs.

After a lovely weekend in Sin City, we checked out of our sweet hotel room at the Ex...calibur that is, and went to the enormous Las Vegas Airport. We were hoping that we were taking a larger plane than we did when we flew into Vegas but boy were we wrong! This two by two "plane" was so small that it didn't have enough overhead compartment space so we had to drop our luggage at the door so the people could put it beneath. Strike One. After sitting on the runway for a good 1/2 hour, it finally took off.

I know that the flight is super bumpy in Vegas because of the desert wind and heat, but we were hitting some intense turbulence right from the start. The size of the plane did not help matters because we felt every bump possible but we were getting tossed around like nobody's business. We were pretty low to the ground and a woman was crying behind us so we went from just turbulance to freaked out pretty quick. Teresa was squeezing my hand and at one point Kate reached over and grabbed my hand too so we were all convinced it was going down. Finally, the pilot decided to get us out of this airpocket and the turbulance finally calmed down. It was just like when David, a small plane carrying innocent people--well as innocent as people can be after Vegas--and taking on Goliath, the mean, bumpy, desert air. Strike Two US Airways.

We finally stopped shaking just as the plane was beginning it's initial descent (which was essentially a nose dive...Foul Ball). Then I jinxed us...Well, we've made it this far. I should have known better-you don't talk like that when you are in a flying deathtrap! We were just about 10 feet off the ground of SFO...give or take a couple of feet and I was gripping my arm rests bracing myself for the landing (I didn't trust this fool to make a smooth landing after the shit he pulled in air!) and all of the sudden we went up into the air like a cork from the bottle of champagne! My stomach literally flipped as we climbed back into the "friendly" skies. You would expect that the pilot would get on the loudspeaker and tell us what the hell was going on...or at least the flight attendants...but no. We were out of the effin loop for about 5 minutes which was the longest 5 minutes of my life. The guy in front of us was pissed off and said that this was the second time this has happened to him, and so I asked him what the hell was going on and he said that it might be that there was another plane on the runway. Well, turns out that this guy was right so we had to circle SFO again and the pilot finally came on and told us what was going on. Well Strike three and Poor form SFO!

After the loooooongest flight of my life (an hour and a half turned into almost 3) we finally landed and we got down and kissed the floor. Apparently Captain Sully who landed the US Airways plane in the Hudson was NOT our pilot. Next time we are driving an RV to Vegas.