Roamin' - the back story

So it was right about this time two weeks ago I was on my way over to Flash's house for our two day getaway to Kentucky. We had planned the trip about three weeks prior using Travelocity to book everything - flight, hotel and rental car.

We get to the airport and start to look for our 8:10 am flight, but can't find it on the board anywhere? Seems strange. We stop at the USAir counter and they tell us gate B6 so we head on back. We get to gate B6 and the sign on the wall says San Francisco. A nice place no doubt, but not where we were planning on going. We ask the guy at the counter what's going on and he proceeds to tell us we are a bit early for our flight, which doesn't depart until 8:10 PM.


And we thought we were late.


We look at each other dumb-founded wondering how this could have happened? After all, Flash had his best guy at the computer booking the tickets. A guy known as I.T. in some circles - me!

Luckily, we were able to get re-ticketed on another flight which got us into Kentucky only 2 hours later than we would have originally, but the mystery of this mix up would bother me for the whole weekend. (and the next 2 weeks!)

We picked up the car at Hertz (OJ was nowhere to be found) and headed on our way. Flash hadn't been back to Bolling Green for 10 years and the main drag was a bit more developed than when he was last there. There were hotels everywhere, all though having spent two days in BG, I can't imagine what they need so many of them for?

If you can name a hotel I bet it was on the strip. If you can't name a hotel, chances are it was the one we booked through Travelocity. We picked what looked to be a decent hotel known as America's Best Value Inn. It had a pool. When we finally found it, it looked deserted. There were only three cars in the lot and it was obvious it was recently bought because the black paint over the "Super 8" sign wasn't doing it's job.

We drove around back to find the "pool" which looked more like a horse trough and both came to the mutual conclusion that we weren't staying there. I think we had thoughts of the Bates Motel running thru our heads.

Luckily for us Tom Bodet left the light on right down the street, another disaster averted. Once we checked in to the Motel 6, I called Travelocity to tell them we were cancelling our reservation at the Bates Best Value Inn. 48 minutes on the phone on and off of hold. That's right 48! As if I didn't have better things to do.

So in an effort to shorten this story up a bit - the rest of the trip in Kentucky was fine. I'm convinced Travelocity's computers screwed up our reservation and I base this on the fact that upon my arrival home I tried to book the same exact vacation, only with the 8:10pm flight we were on, and I couldn't find it anywhere on Travelocity's website.

And all this brings me to my current dislike of the Roaming Gnome. No make that hatred. As strong word yes, but one that is accurate.

Which in turn brings me to the story of how that little bastard came to be eating my pizza.

But that's a blog for another day.......