Greetings from Maine

My step-dad is in the States and my parents were nice enough to pay for me to travel to Maine to visit.
The traveling there was crazy! I've flown Delta airlines several times before and was very satisfied with my experience, but after this, I am very reluctant to fly them again. I originally loved them because taking Riley with me would only cost me $100-150 for the trip. That's now $250 - ridiculous. That's half a plane ticket...

Anyway, I drive up the morning of, visit with my dad and step-mom for a few hours and then it's off the airport. I go to pull up my electronic ticket and there's a problem with my flight to Detroit (it was leg one of two of my flight to Portland, Maine). It seems that there are mechanical problems and it is stopped in Chicago. There's a nice long line to the counter and it's from all the people on the Detroit flight. When I finally reach the counter, it appears that, due to said mechanical failure with the plane, my flight has been canceled. The kicker is, according to the woman behind the desk, there is no flight that will get me to Portland, "because there's reduced flights on Saturday." I asked about other airlines and no luck, supposedly ("the first thing [she] checked"). So the earliest flight would be 6am the next morning. I was really psyched about that one because I *love* getting up in the morning.

My dad bugged the lady at the counter, so she ended up issuing some vouchers (like a $50 voucher for my next airline trip) and he decided to take the hotel voucher to the hotel to see if he can get $$$ for it. It was the wrong hotel, so no dice, but while we were waiting in the parking lot, I decided to check to make sure that there's no other flights that I can be booked on. According to Travelocity, there are several, including some that I could have made, if the woman behind the counter had issued me a ticket for them. So I call the airline's customer service number and ask why I didn't get rescheduled on a different airline, after waiting on hold 5-10 minutes. I was told that even though they show up, they're not available to them to schedule with. So I hang up, disgusted. My Dad was nice enough to call them back, feeling hot about how the airline was pulling a fast one, and his pushing got me a flight - 4 hours after my original flight was set to take off. How ridiculous is that?!!

These pictures were taken on the way back to the terminal.


This first one looked to me like a person petting what I think was a horse. While waiting for my iPhone to fire up, the clouds moved some, so the head separated some, but I thought it was really cool. Now it looks more like a rabbit than a person, but I liked it.

This second one, reminded me of a lion (now it kinda looks like a baboon).

I ended up flying out on Continental - a very pleasant experience. My first time and the planes were small! But I ended up meeting a very nice cardiologist on the flight to Detroit, Henry. Born in the U.S. (Kansas), of Nigerian descent, and now living in London. We talked the entire flight, which made the time pass quickly.

The second plane had propellers!

Craziness.

Portland welcomes its travelers.

Yay, Maine!At least 3 planes disembarked at the same time, so we got to wait for our luggage.

Man. It was a long day - but at least I got to Maine on Saturday, like I planned. I was plumb tuckered out when all was said and done.