Just getting to Florida turned into its own adventure. The High Sierra ended up getting slammed with a massive snow storm, which was I thought was going to be the difficult portion of the flights. I was wrong, the SFO to BIH flight came in without an issue, and there is no where to store a commercial plane in Bishop, so no matter what the plane will return to its hub. The only variable will be if they allow passengers on the flight. I ended up being lucky and the flight left on time and aside from a little turbulence, the BIH to SFO flight was uneventful.

From there it went downhill. Due to an unspecified “operational” issue, we left SFO 2.5 hours late. As we were mid-descent into Houston we were rerouted due to fog and a lack of fuel to Dallas, landed were assured that we would get fuel and soon be on our way back to Houston. Turned out our plane had a maintenance issue that couldn’t be fixed and then as it was fixed our crew timed out (they’re limited on consecutive hours they can be in air). But because flights had been rerouted to Dallas, there weren’t enough gates available, so we sat on the tarmac waiting for a plan. In all, we were on the tarmac in Dallas for over 3 hours (important with the FAA). Eventually, they rolled up a set of stairs and bused us over to a terminal, but not the United terminal.

Fortunately, I’m semi-neurotic and was chatting with a United agent while we were sitting on the tarmac and I was able to be rebooked to a new flight from DFW to IAH, and then the last flight from IAH to Fort Myers. But because we didn’t land in the correct airport according to our tickets, most of the gate agents in Dallas could not provide any information about bags or meal vouchers. Ooy.

I settled in for the short wait for my new flight to Houston that slowly delayed for just over another hour, which meant I still had to be in the gate area and couldn’t find a real meal or caffeine. Eventually, we landed in Houston, but there wasn’t a gate available, so for the second time today, we were stranded on the tarmac. Fortunately, it was less than an hour. Long enough to to be frustrating, but not so bad that I would miss my connection.

Turned out, there would be one more issue with my trip, and it involved my luggage. Even though I check with two agents (via the chat feature on the United app) and in person during my layover in Houston, my luggage did not make my flight to Ft. Myers. It stayed on my original flight from San Francisco, and didn’t make it to Houston until late that evening. Talking with the baggage claims agent was entertaining, especially when things went wonky. Apparently, the baggage tracking system doesn’t like to track over multiple years and I started my trip in Bishop in 2022 and landed in Ft. Myers in 2023. Shenanigans!!!

Luckily it arrived on the first flight from Houston the following morning and everything was fine (though I did get a nice note from TSA that my bag had gone through enhanced screening.