Got to Saint Louis

Possibly the worst flying/airport experience I have ever had. Tremendous turbulence as we began entry to STL made me almost dizzy,  and slightly nauseous from my head bobbing back and forth, side to side. The pilot had warned us it was coming and that we should not worry or be frightened by it. I took his word and did not get scared — just jarred around a lot. I did not like it. Finally we landed.

Announcement came over the speaker as we disembarked. The message was that our baggage would be a little late to claim as the ramp was closed due to lightning. At least WE had made it to the ground safely.

Little did any of us know that it would be HOURS before our luggage would get to us. Johnny and Phyllis were in the waiting parking lot as we sent texts back and forth about all the lightning (baggage guy said they had counted 70 strikes!!!), and they (J & P) were enjoying the show. 

While waiting I walked around (and around) the baggage claim level and found a few things. There is a USO office (I have never considered that to be a recruiting office) with a cadre of young recruits (I asked one and she said yes they are) waiting at attention. The sarge (or whoever) was ordering them about: “pick up your pack and put it to your left side”,”stand up straight”, “walk in single file up these steps”.

Our waiting time got longer and longer as the the lightning storm continued. I kept walking for those hours. The roof started leaking.

And I kept walking around and texting any updates to J&P. Finally (at least 2 hours later) we were told that the baggage was now coming, but our carousel was not working so we had to go to the ‘oversize bags’ carousel.

Not only was this a much smaller “carousel”, there were 300 bags from Delta that would be unloaded before ours (United) came!! The crowd could not be contained to stand back while the workers tried to unload each bag one by one, so it was a bit of chaos.

FINALLY, my bag emerged from the tunnel and I could get out of the STL airport!

This terrible experience — the turbulence (we had 2 other lighter ones earlier in the flight) and the airport baggage adventure — have given me pause about whether I want to do anymore flying. Those things coupled with the inconvenience, the tight seating, the minimal service and long time in a plane make me feel that my flight home might just be my last one!!! My body was achey after the few hours of flying, I had some kind of headache (like jet lag when there should not be jet lag) that lasted through the evening, and just overall did not feel tip top.