Hi y'all. I'm stuck at my mom's in Colorado. In case you don't know they had a big ole blizzard that dumped about 2 feet of snow on the whole metro area. The snow shut down the airport completely leaving about 4700 people stuck at in the airport with only 200-300 cots to share between them. It took 2 days of calling to finally get past the busy signals and reach someone at United to get rescheduled for the first available flight home. I've never been more happy to spend 45 minutes on hold....

I was coming home on Wednesday the 20th but now the first available flight is Christmas day the 25th! It could have been much worse. I didn't get stuck at the airport and didn't get stuck (for too long) in traffic. Made it back to mom's on one piece and got to eat homemade lasagna. Got lucky and made it out in the second to last shuttle bus that escaped the airport before traffic ground to a standstill and they closed the roads. It took 5 and a half hours to go about 60 miles but at least we made it.

Anyhow mom didn't have internet and stupid Wal-Mart no longer has disks for my old provider "Wal-mart Connect" aka "Netscape Connect". Netscape Internet Service is a separate company from Netscape Connect. I ended up signing up for NIS just to have access to the world of the internet. Been feeling cooped up because we could not go anywhere till the streets got plowed today.

Looking forward to getting home and getting over this cold I got from all the snow shoveling.

I feel for you without the internet... I'm up in the foothills of Denver and got closer to 4 feet. This afternoon, we were finally able to get out of the drive

BTW - the HiHy does great in the snow, VDIM kicked in a few times but handled it well....sliding down the driveway, went sideways for a little while but it corrected. I DID NOT attempt to drive back up the drive (only the 2 tire tracks from the trip down and they're getting icy)... luckily our neighbors on the uphill side let us drive thru their drive into our yard when necessary.

Update:

Well I didn't make it home for Christmas. Stupid United cancelled my flight a second time. That wouldn't even have been so bad but the re-re-scheduled flight (3rd attempt) had 2 extra layovers and left earlier in the day than the original (2nd attempt) rescheduled direct flight. Even that would not have been so bad because if I could have made the re-re-scheduled flight (the 3rd attempt) I still would have been home for Christmas, however this was not to be the case...

Something about the re-scheduling caused United to "Zero Out" my ticket (perhaps an industry insider could shed some light on what "zeroed out" means?). I'm not exactly sure what "zeroed out" means but the practical effect is that you can not check in by kiosk or by any normal check in line. Since neither the kisok nor the nice man on the phone at the kiosk could make my e-ticket work I had to go stand in line. Not knowing which line to stand in I asked the first of 3 United employees were to go. The first told me to stand in a line the zig-zaged around the entire United section of the airport and contained perhaps 350 people. Once I finally got far enough in the line I could see that people were using kiosks to check in. Since a kisok had not worked for me the first time I asked the second of 3 United employees if I was standing the the correct line and was assured that indeed I was in the correct line.

The entire time I was standing in line my mother was circling the airport in her car waiting for me to call her on her cell phone. She was waiting to see if I was going to actually make it on a plane and if not she was going to give me a ride. She also had her cell phone OFF.

Eventually mom turned her phone on and found me in the airport. I was still in line. Mom joined me in line and after catching up on the mornings events she also thought it would be a good idea to check and see if we were in the correct line. I told her I had already checked and double checked but she went and asked the 3rd of 3 United employees and she was assured that we were in the correct line.

Of course we were NOT in the correct line so we were sent to another much smaller but much slower moving line. Mom again asked if we were in the correct line and a very rude United employee told her to read the signs above the counters. Of course not one sign said anything about "zeroed out" tickets or trouble with kisok check in. By the time we got done with being on hold at the kiosk and waiting in 2 seperate lines the re-re-scheduled plane had already left so checking in would be pointless. Fortunately after some trouble and supervisor intervention the nice man at the reschedule counter finally rebooked me on another flight, on the following day!! The nice man also checked me in so that I would no need to wait in any more lines (except security) the next day.

I finally made it home the 26th on the 4th attempt. The original travel date was the 20th! Sometimes flying is not the fastest way to travel.

Wow... You need a vacation to recuperate from that vacation. I felt the frustration just reading the account. Hope you still had a good time with the family. Have a Great New Year

And the snow just keeps coming. We had about 30" at our house for the first snow. We got another 9" about a week later. For the 2nd one, they were predicting much more (another 10-20"), but the storm changed. About another week later, we got 8" at our house. The roads in our neighborhood have been snow packed this entire time. We have another snow in the forecast in a few more days.

I've lived in the Denver-metro area for 10 years and I have yet to see anything like this. I've been through two other really big snows, but they were in October 1997 (~30" in Boulder) and March 2003 (~24" in Westminster). Warm weather quickly followed during both of these. We usually don't get this kind of snow in the winter. It's sticking around.

lakedude--That sucks about your travel problems. Luckily, this was the first time since we moved out here that we did not plan on traveling to AR for the holidays.