A Series Of Unfortunate Events

We planned to go back east to visit our families and attend my sister’s wedding, and the week leading up to it has been…interesting.

Unfortunate Event #1
A week before we planned to leave, Andy’s debit card got hacked and someone drained our bank account buying gift cards at Best Buy. The bank said we should be able to get our money back in a couple weeks.

We had nothing to do but make the best of it, and spent last Thursday and Friday rushing around getting all the last minute things done.

Saturday was a relaxing Sabbath day, and then we packed last minute items and headed for the airport Sunday morning. Everyone was excited about the trip and seeing cousins and grandparents again, and we had a nice 3 1/2 hour drive to Anchorage.

On the way to the airport we saw:

Avalanche sites
Nesting sea gulls
A train
Bush plane
One moose
2 swans
Bald eagles
Mountain goats and mountain sheep
People rock climbing and repelling
Waterfalls
People going skiing
The ocean

Unfortunate Event #2
When we arrived at the airport, the parking lot where we usually park our vehicle (the cheap parking lot) was full and we had to find alternative parking in a more expensive spot, the daily charge compounded for two weeks.

But there was no other option, so we unloaded the luggage and the boxes of salmon we’re taking back for family, and four carseats we needed to haul along with us, and began hiking to the terminal.

It was a gorgeous day and the children all helped wonderfully with the luggage.

When we got to the airport terminal, Andy went to check in, but soon came back shaking his head.

Unfortunate Event #3
One of our connecting flights on the trip down no longer existed and NO ONE HAD LET US KNOW.

Because we had booked with Priceline (a third party), the airlines would not work with us, and said we needed to talk to Priceline.

Andy spent 3 hours on the phone with them while I tried to entertain 5 bored children in the airport. Priceline refused to take responsibility and kept trying to get Andy to say that he had canceled the flight himself. They also wouldn’t refund any of our money until Andy finally got through to a senior agent who actually knew what she was talking about. Priceline agreed to refund the money only for that connecting flight and the refund would happen in 2 months.

By this time we had missed our flight out of Anchorage and there were no other flights that day that had 6 seats available.

It was so hard to explain to the children why we had to turn around and go back home. There were many tears, mine included. It was so disappointing to not travel to see family when we had planned for it for so long and done all the work to get a family ready to leave for two weeks.

Back to the van we went and loaded up the luggage and carseats once more, then paid $11 at the stile for parking for 3 hours.

And so we began the drive home, with Jasper howling in the back because he hates his carseat and the rest of us almost in tears ourselves.

I drove so Andy could keep looking for new tickets. Finally he found a flight that left out of Anchorage at 6 AM on Tuesday.

With our bank account drained we didn’t have $2k to spend on tickets again, but Andy’s folks paid for them for us until we can get our finances back in order.

The drive home was uneventful other than multiple stops to comfort a crying Jasper. We got home at 8:30. Almost 12 hours of travel and we were no closer to our destination.

We spent the day today washing our airport clothes again and cleaning out the van and taking naps to recover from a grueling day yesterday.

We start driving again at 11 PM and drive through the night to get through security and make our early morning flight. To be honest we’re giving ourselves LOTS of extra time and still nervous something will go wrong with this flight too. Time will tell.

Note to self: never book with Priceline again. Book tickets directly through the airline!