The Next Day and the Next

The next day we woke up early. The first flight left before 8am and we had to have time to ride the shuttle to the airport and get through security. We made it. But it wouldn't have mattered. We missed that flight, and the next, and the next, and the next. I think there was one flight left that day. We didn't think the plane would have room for us, so we started checking into flights to any city west of Denver. We actually thought of Denver too, but it was only halfway and we would still have 20 hours of driving left. We wondered if we should rent a car and start driving. We wondered if we should just go home.
Then as a final effort we decided to talk to the customer service representative one last time. Surprisingly she said there were three seats left on a plane to Salt Lake City. But the plane left in ten minutes -- And it was in a different concourse -- And we had to call our sponsor and get approval for the ticket change. We rushed across the airport. Eric was talking on the phone as we went. Another amazing thing, we got a hold of the one who had given us the tickets. He just happened to be in his hotel room in front of his computer. Not only that but he was able to talk to his contact and get our flight change approved by the time we got to the new gate. This approval process could take days, but we had just been approved in less than 10 minutes!
There were five people on standby, maybe it was six. We were so nervous. We had never been this close before. Then the shock came -- they actually called our names! We were getting on the plane! There was one seat left in first class. Lucky Eric got that one. He did have the longest legs. Mel and I headed to the back of the plane. Our seats were in the very back row, but when we got there, my heart sank. There was a man sitting in my seat. I knew there must be a mistake -- that the attendant shouldn't have called my name -- that I was getting off the plane. But to my relief she had one more seat in the middle of the plane that the man moved to and Mel and I sat together.
It was a small plane. Our seats could not recline at all because we were next to the back wall, but worse than that the seats leaned forward slightly. We didn't think it was a big deal, but four hours later when we got off the plane we realized our backs were sore, molded into the shape of a "c". The plane was delayed for about an hour because of weather. We were afraid we weren't going to leave. Although when we finally did leave, Mel said she felt a slight sadness as we left the airport that had become like a home to us.
I tried to sleep on the flight because I knew it would go faster, but it was hard to sleep because it was not comfortable. It was late when we arrived in Salt Lake. We were eager to get off the plane and excited about being that much farther west and not looking forward to the twelve hour drive ahead of us.
Eric started asking about our trip. He said he had such a relaxing trip. He was able to sleep, to stretch out. He was given a snack pack with about five different snacks (Mel and I had skipped dinner.) They kept offering him drinks. That's when we couldn't associate with him any more. We walked away toward the baggage claim with our hunched backs, ringed eyes and gnawing stomachs. Class envy, he said.
We tried to rent a car one way, but it was five times as much, so we decided round trip would be fine. We would fly out of Salt Lake again on the way home. When we finally left the airport it was after 1am. We looked for something open where we could get food, eventually we found a gas station and found some junk food. Which I ended throwing up later along the road in the wilderness of Utah. Eric drove through the night while Mel and I tried to sleep. Mel drove in the morning. I actually didn't drive the car at all until the trip home. By morning we were in Oregon, but Oregon is a large state, so we still had a lot of driving. It is also sparsely populated with fewer restaurants, compared to the east, so we ended up finding something to eat at a gas station again.
Mel lived on her coffee. Even Eric was becoming addicted.
We arrived in Westport Saturday afternoon.