White Christmas or Bust

I grew up in Massachusetts, so I got used to having snow on Christmas Day almost every year. When we moved to Wisconsin, there wasn’t much change. Now that I live in Houston, I love the warm winters, but I still demand that there be snow on Christmas. This year apparently God thought it would be funny to reward my wishes with more snow than you can shake a stick at. That’s right, folks, my family had decided to go to Denver for Christmas this year. The two big storms coincided rather unfortunately with my travel plans to and from, and there was a dusting of fresh powder on Christmas Eve besides. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and I need to start at the beginning...

December 20 – I received a call from my sister in Denver, informing me there was a huge, beautiful snow storm in progress. “No worries,” she said, because it was supposed to stop early the next morning and my flight at 11pm would not be affected. She just wanted to let me know the forecast for the week was “cold,” meaning the snow might actually stick around for Christmas.

December 21 – Contrary to prediction, it was still snowing in Denver. I received an automated message from Continental informing me that my flight for that evening had been cancelled. The Denver airport was officially closed until the next day. After being put on ‘hold’ for 25 minutes, the representative told me the soonest I could get to Denver was the 29^th. I almost started crying. Last time I checked, that was after Christmas. It was also the same day as my return trip. “Not gonna cut it,” I said. Mr. Helpful says, “Oh, I have one seat in First Class on the 26^th. We’ll waive the change fee, but you’ll have to pay the difference in fare.” Umm, excuse me? Still AFTER CHRISTMAS, and I’m not paying for anything! At least I got a full refund of my already-over-priced ticket, and a pseudo-genuine statement of empathy from Mr. Helpful’s supervisor.

Next step: Phone call with my sister in Denver. Major brainstorming. We came up with everything short of rowing a boat across the Texas desert. Every flight into every airport within 6 hours of Denver was booked solid. Driving would mean staying up for almost an entire day and night, and my parents warned me that they would both have panic attacks if I attempted it. The Amtrak train would have taken me to Colorado by way of Illinois, which was a lot of unnecessary travel time. And two of the four legs of the trip were sold out, which would have meant a lot of hitch-hiking. I figured I’d save that adventure for another time.

Final solution: Greyhound bus service, with stops in a dozen Texas towns and half a dozen more in southern Colorado. Maximum layovers were about an hour, with one bus transfer. Estimated travel time: 23 hours. Not ideal, but at least I’d make it in plenty of time for Christmas Eve. Luckily my friend Christina from school was in the same situation, so she decided to brave the bus with me. Having someone normal to sit next to ended up being a key factor in my ability to not lose my mind.

December 22, 7am – Christina and I departed from the downtown Houston bus station. Again, things went rather astray from prediction. ACTUAL travel time: 34 hours. One five hour layover in Ft Worth (they told us it would be 10 minutes). One four hour layover in Amarillo at 2am, in the dirtiest bus station I have ever seen. It was HORRIBLE. In Amarillo they said the bus needed servicing and they’d be back in an hour. Three hours later, there was no sign of our bus, and there was still no one working the information desk. One guy we had befriended called the Greyhound 800 number and got put on hold and then disconnected. We were simultaneously hoping and fearing that there was a hidden camera, we were on a reality show about stress and traveling for the holidays, and there would be a big cash payout if we could just refrain from having temper tantrums and killing each other until the next morning.

I must say that Greyhound customer service leaves much to be desired. “The customer is always right” somehow became “Shut up and sit down. I know we lied to you about having a bus here, but that’s not our problem. Stop asking for information or we’ll keep feeding you lies about how you’re getting anywhere tonight.” I actually got yelled at for booking my ticket to the second stop in Denver instead of the third. The driver asked why I did it, and I of course answered that it was the option closest to my sister’s house. The driver then told me I shouldn’t have done that because the route doesn’t stop there. Well, honey, I did it on YOUR website, and seven hours ago when we were actually on schedule, it WAS one of the stops. Then she had the nerve to tell me “good luck” getting my bags to the right station. Not only had I practically put them under the bus myself, the stop they wanted me to get off at is the last stop on the route, so all the bags would be coming off regardless. I don’t get it.

December 23, 5pm – I finally made it to downtown Denver and claimed both my bags, much to the chagrin of the aforementioned rude driver. We settled in at my sister’s house and spent several quality days together as a family. Merry Christmas!

December 29 – The second storm hit Denver. The city promised they would have things plowed and would keep the airport as functional as possible. Fat chance. I received another automated message that my flight home had been canceled. Luckily I had anticipated this and had already booked a new flight for Sunday online the night before, so I relished in my future refund of that ticket price (which had cost me $55 more than the back-up flight I booked), and I happily spent two hours watching movies with my sister instead of being on ‘hold’ with Frontier airlines.

December 31, 8pm – I finally made it on a flight back to Texas via my back-up flight on Continental. Two feet off the landing strip in Houston, our pilot pulled up and started circling the airport. I had this sinking feeling that it was all a big joke and I was headed back to Denver, but apparently he just misjudged the runway and we landed shortly thereafter. I got back just in time to attend a fabulous New Year’s Eve party with several of my good friends and a handful of warm, welcoming, fun, and funny strangers.

Things I learned:

1. Greyhound time is a curvilinear, exponential function of real-world time:
Ten minutes = five hours.
“Your bus is pulling in right now” = three hours.
“This stop will be fifteen minutes” = “Get back on the bus in ten or I’ll start yelling and leave without you.”
“We’ll be leaving in just a minute” = twenty minutes, give or take half an hour.

2. Even when traveling in the continental US, there are language barriers. “We’ll just be switching drivers here, so stay in your seats” can be translated into Greyhound-speak as, “Everybody off the bus, we’ll go ahead and transfer your luggage for you and then complain about it.”

3. There is a black hole somewhere between Dallas and Fort Worth that swallows buses. They told us a bus was on the way, but then three hours later informed us the driver had stopped answering his cell phone and they’d have to call for another one. They never did locate that missing bus.

4. Waking up with a crick in your neck after 24 hours on a bus and finally seeing snow is a sight that will make you forget (temporarily) that you have a crick in your neck and have been on a bus for 24 hours.

5. The taste of McDonald’s coffee lies somewhere on the spectrum between “bad coffee” and “dirty dishwater.”

6. There are no Sprint towers between Amarillo, TX, and Colorado Springs, CO.

7. When a package is delayed by weather, UPS tracking tells you the package has "experienced an exception." What does that mean? All I know is that the last of my Christmas orders from Amazon.com, originally scheduled for delivery on 12/22, should arrive in Denver any day now…

8. Apparently I will do almost anything to ensure a white Christmas with my family.

Sorry for the long post, but it was quite a drawn-out adventure. For those who stuck with me till the end, I wish you the happiest of new years. For those who are no longer reading, I wish you curses and bad karma.

Here’s to 2007!

See below for pictures from the journey.