Snowed In

Extra snuggles this month!

I'm traveling for work now.  This is our busy travel season so that means monthly stops in Seattle to visit Gman and his people.

I try to stop only once a month, I am the mother-in-law and I don't want to wear out my welcome.  I do try to be considerate, I always ask if this weekend or that weekend works for them (they always say yes, not matter what), and I try not to impose my opinion (too much) on anything they do.

Well, I was headed down to Arizona.  The first leg of my trip, from Fairbanks to Seattle, was uneventful (just like you want all your flights to be), I had a good book an hour and a half layover so I could use the bathroom, get a snack and find my next gate without rushing too much.  Got on the plane (complementary first class upgrade!) and was ready for the next leg of my flight.

It was snowing pretty heavily in Seattle, the curly haired boy and the Seattle DIL's schools had been canceled off and on during the week because of all the snow, but I didn't think anything about the weather, I mean, it snows in Alaska all the time and it doesn't stop air travel.  But Seattle snow is a little different, I was going to learn.

Many flights that evening were getting canceled. Our flight was delayed, moved gates (3 times) and delayed a little more.  We weren't canceled though and I didn't have a connecting flight so I wasn't worried.  We boarded, with only about an hour and a half delay.

There was one de-icing truck at the gate, and after about a 30 minutes wait for our turn, it made it's rounds on the airplane.  Our captain came out, checked the wings and made the announcement that we needed to be de-iced again.  We sat about 30 more minutes and waited for our turn, again and then got de-iced a second time.  The captain checked the wings again and made the announcement that it still wasn't right and he had a call into the de-icing people to see what was going on.  We waited about 45 minutes for the head de-icing truck to pull up, they opened the door and let the captain off and discussed the problem with the de-icing.

The captain got back on (we had been sitting on the plane over 2 hours by now) and let us know we would be pulling out to a de-icing pad where there were 4 trucks to de-ice us at the same time since the one truck just couldn't de-ice and keep up with the heavy snow fall.  Because the door had been opened, I turned my phone on to text my parents (they are in Tucson and where I was going to spend the weekend) and let them know I was running late.  I was playing words with friends and I got a notification from my airline that our flight had been canceled.  Really?  The captain had just said we were headed to the de-icing pad.  I sat and waited.  About 5 minutes later the captain came on the intercom and announced that the runways had been closed and all flights out of Seattle were canceled for the night.  The ground crew just couldn't keep up with the heavy snow fall for safe take-offs.

We all got off the plane and headed to customer service to rebook.  Well, my choice was to sleep in the airport (all the area hotels were over full from the earlier canceled flights) and leave the next day, or rent a car drive to see Gman and leave on Sunday to get to Arizona in time for work.  Can you guess what I did?

A surprised little guy.

We had lots of snow to shovel!

I had a slow drive out to Gman's house, but it wasn't too bad in the blowing snow, there was no traffic at 1:30 in the morning and had a wonderful day and a half with them. I flew out Sunday with no further incidents.  It really was a baby bonus visit since I wasn't scheduled to see him until the first of March when we are on vacation.

When I got up at Gman's house, the DIL said to Gman, "See here is your surprise I told you about."
Gman replied, "That's not a surprise, that's my grandma."

Yep, I am happy to be Gman's grandma.

Just chillin' after playing outside.

3 years ago:   Almost like King Hawaiian Rolls and the Big Rat in the House
5 years ago:   Being a Bad Friend and Pumpkin, Spelt, Sourdough Bread
7 years ago:   Maple Bourbon Sour - Drink of the Week

February 18, 2019  Sunrise 8:39am  Sunset 5:31pm  Temp. H 23/ L 11˚F