Share via

Denver Blizzard 2006 – My journey back home! Part 1 & 2 of 3

  • Article

So after the latest events in my life, I thought I would take a personal approach and introduce you to some days of my life as I live them. Working at Microsoft after all is a part of who I am, and there is more to me than just the .NET 3.0 stuff and the code and talking about all the cool stuff Microsoft does.

 

For the first year as a blogger I thought I would post information that was about the local user groups and events. Code pieces and commonly asked questions, well today I have embarked on a journey which I think is fun to share. There is a person behind this blog, and my name is Ani a.k.a. XAMLCHICK!

 

For those who know me, you know I live in Denver and that Denver was hit with yet another blizzard today. The Denver blizzard of 2006 has come at a funny time.

I was in Redmond for meetings and was due to fly back to Denver today around 11am. After hearing the reports and attempting to call the airline, which led to nowhere, I arrived at the airport. Walked up to the airline counter and found out the next time they can get me on a flight is Sunday Dec 24th. But I have a vacation flight to catch on Dec 22nd! Oh the clerk didn’t care! And to top it all off, they could not find any other flights from Seattle or Portland to get me back home. They said they couldn’t event put me on other flights that would get me close to home, I attempted Salt Lake City, Kansas City or even St. Louis. The power of internet to the RESCUE!!! I love my “Star Trek” phone, a.k.a Cingular 3125! Smartphone. I got online and looked up the flights and found a flight that left Portland for Salt Lake City around 5p.m. It’s now 10:30am so what do I do? I get back on the highway and go to Redmond campus one last time to make the travel arrangements on line and make certain I can get on this flight, since the airline clerk refuses to help me and I can’t seem to call them, all the 800 numbers for airlines is busy!

 

I am able to buy the ticket online and set on my journey back home! I then begin driving from Seattle to Portland at 12:30pm to catch a 5:15pm flight from Portland to Salt Lake City. As I am leaving the two ladies sitting next to me in the lunch room, where I stopped to get a bite to eat say, oh gosh it takes 4 hours to get to Portland from Seattle, You’ll never make it!

 

In my mind, I tell myself, but https://local.live.com says it will only take 2.5 hours! I know I will make it! I arrived in Portland airport at 3pm! YEY I had made the

1st part of my 3 part journey! I checked in! HURRAY!!!!

 

I then took the flight to Salt Lake City and have an SUV! Tomorrow the plan is to check with the airport and see what is the first flight I can get on! If there is an earlier flight I will take it, otherwise I will be driving to Denver from Salt Lake City! So that is approximately 7.5 hours, but with the snow I suspect around 12 hours! Well stay tuned to hear what comes next!