Flying out to California

Whelp, that thing you always dread when you need to leave for a trip from a wintery city, snow, did indeed come in over the night and really hit us pretty good. Mixed good and bad news.  There was enough snow that it meant that Cathy’s school was cancelled for the day, so we didn’t need to worry about rushing from her work to the airport to catch the plane.  Of course, we still had to get to the airport, which first meant clearing the six to eight inches of snow that had piled up on the driveway before going anywhere.  Oh, and we needed to stop somewhere on the way to the airport to buy a new suitcase, because the zipper had broken on one of the pieces we’d planned to use.  Driving was pretty bad, but the snow did start tapering off near the middle of the day, which was encouraging for making the plane.  Finally making it to the airport, the incoming plane was indeed running late, but still early enough that it looked good for making it out close to on time, and since the snow had stopped, meant no deicing.  Our flight out actually left pretty close to on time, which was good, because we had a tight connection in Phoenix.  However, we fought 190+ mph headwinds the entire way, and ended up getting in close to an hour and a half late.  Thought for sure we’d missed the connecting flight, but when checking the monitors after getting off, discovered that it was still listed as boarding, and at a gate just a couple away from where we were.  Sure enough, they’d just announced preboarding, so we actually made it.  Turned out the crew was late, so we actually ended up making it into Oakland that night, picking up our rental car to drive over to the hotel in San Francisco.  Ended up checking in around 1 AM, a couple hours after we’d originally expected.  Oh, and that new bag that we’d bought that morning?  US Air managed to trash it pretty good, with a couple of good slits in the back of it.