The weekend before Thanksgiving I flew out out to Buffalo to visit Andrea for the weekend. This was definitely the weekend of travel drama for me. First I arrived at O’Hare in Chicago 30 minutes late due to weather in Chicago. When I get to the gate for Buffalo, the airplane is supposed to be boarding, but there’s no plane. The plane finally shows up and everyone deplanes. By that point our departure time is now “To Be Announced.” Evidently the weather in Buffalo has now deteriorated while we were waiting for an airplane. After waiting another 15-20 minutes, the gate attendants come on and tell us that the weather in Buffalo is still bad, but they’re going to board the plane, fly us to Rochester, and then bus us back to Buffalo. Once we’re on the plane, we sit there for another 20-30 minutes wondering what’s going on when the pilot comes on the intercom. Evidently the weather in Rochester is now bad as well. So we’re going to take off and head towards Buffalo hoping the weather clears. If it doesn’t we’re going to head to Rochester. If that doesn’t work, we’ll go to Toronto. We actually take off having no idea where we’re actually going to land. The fog in Buffalo evidently cleared while we were en route and we ended up landing there about an hour and a half late.
On Friday the 19th, Andrea and I got up late due to the 1 am arrival of the plane and didn’t go to Toronto as we had originally planned. Instead we went to the Theodore Roosevelt Inagural Historical Site. This is the mansion in Buffalo where Roosevelt was inagurated as the 26th President of the United States in 1901 following the assassination of President McKinley at the PanAm Exposition. This was a really interesting visit as McKinley is one of only a handful of American Presidents ever inagurated outside of Washington, D.C. Following the Wilcox Mansion tour, we went to see The Incredibles and then to a reception for the Women’s Law Journal.
On Saturday the 20th, the big event of the day was the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at Shea’s Theater in Buffalo. This was a wonderful show and one of the better stage productions I’ve seen in quite a while. Following the show, Andrea and I went out to dinner at Ya-Ya Bayou Brewhouse across the street from the theater.
On Sunday the travel adventures began again. The plane from Buffalo to Chicago arrived 30 minutes early, prompting a gate change so we could get off the plane. Andrea’s plane to Des Moines was supposed to leave about 20 minutes after mine, but we got over to my gate and my plane had been delayed by 30 minutes already. So we went to grab some dinner then I walked her over to her gate and returned to mine. The plane arrived and we boarded on pace to be only about 40 minutes late. However as we push back from the gate the pilot discovers a low hydraulic pressure in the center line. While maintenance fixes that, they discover another oil leak. So we sit there on the airplane for an hour while they fix that. Don’t get me wrong though. I’d much rather they fix this on the ground, thank you very much. So we finally get out of Chicago and have a flawless flight to Denver and land an hour and a half late and become the second flight of the weekend where United would give free drinks to the cabin.
Photos of the weekend are in the Miscellaneous section on the Photo page.
