We were supposed to spend two weeks in the Midwest, one week with Kurt’s family in Michigan and one week with friends in Wisconsin. We got up on the 21st at 6am and checked the fight. All systems were go, so we left for the airport at 8 after checking again that all systems were still a go. We arrived at the airport after a little trouble finding a parking lot with a vacancy at 10. We checked the board and all things were still on time for us. The line for Norwest airline wrapped around the inside of the airport. Its length equivalent to six football fields end to end and our flight was due to take off in two and a half hours. We figured there was NO WAY we would make it through that line in that time. I waited in that line while Kurt checked around for an alternative check in.
We checked in at curbside within thirty minutes and were on our on our way through security. We made it to the gate and then onto the plane. We sat in the plane, and we sat and sat and sat some more. Sophia was fabulous through it all but after a while she, along with a couple other toddlers needed to walk up and down the isle of the plane. They told us we were fifth in line to be de-iced and then later announced that we had been moved up to third in line. We sat for two hours INSIDE the plane at the gate. Finally, they said that it would be quite a bit longer so if we wanted to we could leave our things behind and get off the plane to stretch our legs.
Twenty minutes later Alaska and Horizon airlines made an announcement that there would be NO flights out for the day and ten minutes after that our flight with Northwest was also canceled. I had to go back in the plane to get our carry-ons and then we had to go down to baggage claim to get our checked bags. They were telling people in the airport, “If you’re from Seattle GO HOME!” How rude! It took about an hour before we got our bags and then we headed home. We had to stop on the way to get dinner because there wasn’t any food at home. After all we weren’t planning on being there for two weeks. We arrived home about 8pm. We tried calling the airline for new tickets but halfway through the computerized call it would say that the phone lines were overloaded or some such and disconnect us. I tried again the next morning at 6am. It was the same thing. I finally got through after about two hours. There were no flights out for that day or the next, not even the day after that. I drilled the Northwest airlines operator asking for ANY fight out with ANY airline and even suggested other airports from which to fly out. There were absolutely NO fights until the 26th unless we wanted to quickly drive 1,957 miles to San Diego from Seattle area to catch a flight on the 23nd. Shit, fuck damn it all!
We had even missed a Christmas party the day before just so we could pack and be well rested for travel with a toddler. We actually tried to make it to the party but it took half an hour just to make it to the freeway from our house and then another half an hour to make it 14 miles out of a 54 mile trip, so we decided it would be best to turn around and go home to finish packing for our early morning flight that almost was.
The surface streets were horrible because Seattle area doesn’t believe in using salt for “environmental reasons” and the few plows they have only cover the freeways. The plows are fucking retarded here. They have a road safe rubber edge so that the snow is simply packed down to ice instead of actually removed from the road. Anywhere used to the snow would have had this shit cleared within hours. Not Seattle, no. They want to save the fucking turtles (stupid bumps in the road that let you know you’re in an actual lane because painted lines aren’t enough for Seattleites).
It’s true that salt will rust bridges and cars. It also gets into streams, but I can imagine that for the week or so out of the any given year in which Seattle actually gets snow that it would cause tremendous damage compared to all the damage done to car tires and shocks from the snowy road ruts or all the mangled metal accidents due to sliding on compacted snow. I won’t even mention the coolant, oil, and fuel that might spill into streams from these cars. Ok, maybe a brief mention. Is salting the roads really *that* bad. I don’t fuckin’ think so.
I wish we could have made it to the Christmas party so Sophia could see Santa just like last year. 
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