Survivor

The boys and I enjoyed a great week in California with my family. An hour into our return flight, however, I noticed smoke in the cabin. The smell was awful and the haze growing. In response to the electrical fire we made an emergency landing in Vegas. I held both my boys tight as I said a little prayer and braced myself for the emergency landing. The thought leaving Jonathan without a family saddened me. I was not afraid to die, but how could I leave my loved ones behind hurt and lonely? I was overcome with a sense that it was not our time to die. Regardless, I was frightened as we plummeted from the sky. Ethan, on the other hand thought we were on a roller coaster. "Weeeee" was what I heard during moments of feeling weightless on the descent. The pilot was obviously nervous, as he continuously corrected his turns, drops, speed, etc. Noah was fortunate to be sleeping during all of this hoopla.

We landed with a bang. 8-10 firetrucks followed us as we made our way to the gate. Future travellers were watching the scene with wonder and a little fright form the airport. As soon as we stopped two men dressed like astronauts came aboard to check out the fire. We were told to get off the plane and were sent to a new airplane instead, thank goodness. Everyone wanted to get off that plane. A funny thing is before we took off the flight attendants kept asking everyone on board who a certain unclaimed black bag belonged to. If it was not claimed they were going to remove it from the plane. The thought crossed my mind, we are in for a real interesting flight. I was was right.

We made it back safely to Grand Junction, thankfully! Turns out that it was merely an electrical fire/malfunction in the cabin lighting. It had nothing to do with the engine, but that had to be assessed on the ground by professionals.

On our flight out to LA the plane was over-fueled and we were stuck on the ground for an extra hour while they spill was cleaned up. When I asked for a glass of water for my toddler the snotty flight attendant told me water was $2. After 30 minutes or so I gave her money, only to be told she could not open the drink cart until mid-flight. On our doomed return flight, the same flight attendant asked what I wanted to drink (we are all given a free drink for the inconvenience - yeah - they made us all think we were going to die and offered us a free soda as consolation). Well, I just HAD to ask for water. Water never tasted so good! :)

The moral to the story: never fly Allegiant Air no matter how much the fare tempts you. Life is not to be gambled with.