We are now free to move about the country!

It seems that, as of late, many people have been leaving the airports a little on the ornery side-- especially if they have a connection through Chicago! I must say, despite the craziness of an over-tired two year old who can't sleep anywhere but a bed, we had a very pleasant trip from Buffalo to Salt Lake yesterday.

We go to the airport early (thank you Ryan Nielsen!!!!) and I have never seen the place as busy as it was. It literally looked like every single sports team, male and female, from the University was leaving for an away contest. That, combined with an influx of regular travelers, made the security line hundreds of people long. I haven't seen that many backed up travelers since driving on the 5 freeway in Los Angeles!! Anyway, after standing in line for a few minutes, and at this point I'm starting to think that despite our early arrival we aren't going to make our flight, a wonderful lady comes up to us and says "Since you have a stroller you qualify for 'special needs' security. Follow me!" YES!!! I LOVE STROLLERS!! So we skipped EVERYONE and happily made our way to the front of our special line.

Shortly after we got on our airplane a worried flight attendant came on the speaker and admitted that they had overbooked the flight (our first flight was to Chicago) and asked if anyone would be willing to take a later flight to Chicago, and the airline would compensate them with a $200 travel voucher plus the price of their ticket from Buffalo to Chicago. She said that anyone who would be willing to be bumped would be guaranteed to arrive in Chicago by tomorrow (Friday). She also mentioned that they needed three seats-the exact number of seats we had. I told Abby that I was down, and asked what she wanted to do. Ingeniously, Abby raised her hand and said "We'll do it if you can get us to Salt Lake." They told us they could, so we got off the plane, although it was much to Max's dismay: "I don't wanna leave!!! I wanna go to YOU-TA!!"

Well, to make a long story short, we took a plane to Baltimore, and then hopped on the flight from there to Salt Lake, and actually ended up making it to Salt Lake 30 minutes before our original flight! The ironic part about this story is that when my mom was booking our tickets she was trying to find us tickets through Baltimore (because it was faster) but they were unjustifiably more expensive!! The only downside of this story? Our stroller and car seat didn't get transferred, so they are going to ship them to us. Luckily we are visiting grandma, and grandma is always prepared! What did we get for all of our troubles? $1,000 dollars in travel vouchers good for one year! Wow, thanks! You got us on a faster flight and paid us for it!

So now I have a new goal. It seems like every time we fly southwest they run into the problem of overbooking, and offer the vouchers. My goal is to see how long we can travel on the airline's dime by taking the bump every time they offer it. I'm hoping for a streak of at least five! So maybe my title should have been, "We are now free to bump about the country!"