Why Scream When I Can Blog?

It has been one of those travel days, and since I am traveling alone, I can't vent with anyone, so I will vent here.

To be clear, I had an awesome family vacation--had lots of fun, lots of great meals made by family members (took us decades to figure out the best way to feed us is for us to rent places and feed ourselves rather than go to restaurants with 10-15 people).  So, today's frustrations were worth it, but,  yeesh.

 So, what happened?

1. I had to wake at 4am to get to the airport for my flight, and that was fine, although the rental car's tire has too little air caused me some anxiety.
2. The Reno airport was fine even if I didn't get any money back from my $1 wager at the slot machine.
3. The flight boarded fine, and I got bumped to first class.  Managed to sleep ok, but storms over Chicago meant that our landing was delayed until just the moment my next flight took off for Ottawa.
4. I used the United app to get a flight to Ottawa via Newark since I missed the last flight to Ottawa.  So far, so good, eh?  
5. No.  The plane was late to take off, first because it was short one flight attendant, and then once we were sitting around a while, they decided to swap flight attendant crews, and then we sat around for a while longer.
6. So, we landed just about the time the last flight to Ottawa was to take off.  Oh, but we had 7 passengers on the plane who were supposed to go to Ottawa.  So, would they hold the plane for about 1/3 of the passengers?  
7. Sort of.  The app told us upon landing that they were holding the flight for us, because, of course, with so many passengers, why not wait a few minutes.  They did... for the first four passengers but not for the next three.  I don't know how the others got ahead of us--we didn't sprint, but we didn't dally either.  So, our plane took off without us.  
8. The gate people were of absolutely no help but gave us a qr code so that we could text with someone with a shaky connection.  I chose to go to the United lounge since that seems to be the only place on this side of the airport to get a real person to help.
9. But I couldn't get in the lounge since I could no longer access my boarding passes on my app.  So, eventually they let me through.
10. Where I found a super helpful person who got me on the first flight tomorrow and got me vouchers for hotel and food.
11. I discovered that I lost my water bottle along the way.  That's ok--it was a freebie from a conference two weeks ago and it was very much worth what I paid for it--very leaky. 
12. I tried to eat a dumpling place at the airport, but they were closing.
13. I then tried the cheese steak place, but they were closing.
14. I went to the Italian sandwich shop which had one guy making sandwiches and was taking forever.
15. So, I left and sought the shuttle--the text I had with the vouchers indicated that I could just call up and they would send a shuttle.  Nope, it comes every hour so I would have to wait 45 minutes.
16. I had no patience for that, so I went to get a taxi, but I was on the wrong floor.
17. So, I went to get a taxi--$37 for a very short drive.  And the guy couldn't zip the credit card--had to enter it manually.
18. Got to the hotel, phew.  Got my keycard but went to their restaurant before it was to close.  
19. Who the fuck puts cilantro on garlic shrimp?  So, I got my dinner, spent most of it peeling cilantro off of the shrimp, which were fine otherwise.
20. Went to my room where the key card didn't work.
21. So I went back down and the desk guy's solution, since "the card should work" was to send a security guy back up with me.  And, yes, the card still did not work, so the security guy let me in.  Good thing I have no plans to leave the room until my 5am shuttle.
22. My ice cold room since the AC was set on blasting the coldest air. 
23. Oh, and one last annoyance (I hope): the room not only has no bottles of water but no glasses or cups of any kind.  I'd like to have some water with my pills/vitamins.  So, now I am waiting for someone to drop some off since, yes, I can't leave my room.  
24. Oy.
25. I just hope my bag goes with me tomorrow, but if it does not, no biggie, since I am done traveling until September.

And no, I was mostly nice to the united people except for the unhelpful gate people.  It is not their fault, but damn it, they should have waited just a couple more minutes.  Or at least been a little bit more sympathetic about fucking us over.