After six long years...I finally made it back...

...to the Islands and it took me long enough to get here! It's kind of funny now, but at the time, I wanted to rip my hair out. I was suppose to fly out of Knoxville at 12:30PM on May 31st and land in Hawaii by 7:45PM. Around 10:30AM, all heck broke loose, flight wise. I got an alert saying my MEM to LAX was going to be delayed due to mechanical issues. While this would cause me to miss my connection over water, this turned out to be my saving grace.

En route to Jessica's, I called Delta to see if they could re-route me. They could and did. My new flight was scheduled to leave 30 minutes earlier and would send me to ATL and SFO, getting me to Hawaii about 30 minutes later. No big deadly, right? Jessica was kind enough to print my updated boarding pass before she took me to the airport, but I would still have to check in at the gate for a seat assignment. Shocker, an ATL bound flight was delayed, so this made check-in a little more annoying than usual, but once I got my new boarding passes, I noticed they put me in First Class.

Of course that was too good to be true. My journey West was about to turn into my biggest nightmare! We were held on the ground due to traffic/weather in ATL. This was going to make my connection tight. Just as we were about to take off, I noticed vehicles coming toward our plane. Yup, the pilot shut off the engine because someone on our flight needed medical attention. I as well as the entire plane started to get frustrated. Not because of the passenger that needed help, but at the lack of communication between the pilot and other passengers. Not to mention the lack of urgency with the EMTs. Since we're still sitting on the ground, I call Delta to see if they can get me on another flight since there's no way I'm making the SFO connection now.

The agent I spoke to was very helpful and tried to get me on an American Air flight out of ATL. There were no openings, but she could get me on a flight from ATL to LAX to OGG (Maui) to HNL. This would get me in and hour later than my original time, but I didn't care, I just wanted out of the airport. So they finally get the person off the plane and instead of taking off, we turn around and head back to the gate. I'm about to lose my sh*t at this point. We are not given a reason as to the turn around. They allow us to deplane as we've been sitting there for what seemed like hours. I was not a fan of this at first, as another flight to ATL left as we were standing around. By the time I got to the desk, I was at my breaking point. I was losing vacation time. I asked the TYS gate agent to please get me the heck out of town. I knew I'd have to spend the night on the West Coast. I wasn't happy at all, but there was nothing else I could do. My final itinerary had me going from ATL to LAX. Spending the night there and flying out first thing in the morning. I still had a First Class upgrade, Delta would put me up in a hotel and give me meal vouchers.

But the best thing about being stuck in LA, my cousin Patti was going to rescue me and take me to In-N-Out Burger once I landed. We finally took off for ATL and I made it to my connecting gate with seven minutes to spare. I didn't even have time to go to the bathroom at the airport. This is when my First Class upgrade came in handy, I got right on the plane, didn't have to fight for overhead space and could go to the bathroom while everyone else boarded. You better believe I took advantage of my status. I became friends with my old friend, Jack Daniels! He helped to ease my travel headaches.

I was fortunate to have nice travel companions as well. There was an older guy next to me for the first half of the flight. After dinner, he moved back to sit with the rest of his family and his son took his spot. This guy was probably the nicest guy I've ever met. He was just a baby though, only 27. He and his family were heading to a wedding in Santa Monica. After traveling for about a million hours, we finally landed in LA. I headed to the Delta counter to pick up my hotel and travel vouchers and called my cousin. She met me at the Westin LAX and off we went, in search of food! I've never been so happy to have family all over the country!