Day 0: Wednesday

I had two Masses to celebrate in the morning, one at the parish and another at the Baptist Home on this Ash Wednesday.  It was all carefully planned, though I had to rush to get to the airport on time.

But as I was bustling around the parish office, my cell phone rang.  United Airlines was calling to tell me that my flight out of Bismarck had been cancelled! Listen to the audio of the very polite, automated message by clicking "play," above.

I was unsure of what to do.  United Air’s website was worthless.  There was a 60-minute wait to talk to anyone on the phone.  The airport’s phone number wouldn’t give me a real person. 

Jesse then called.  He was at the airport, waiting in line to talk to the agent who was slowly rebooking passengers.

To make a very long story short, we ended up renting a car, driving to Fargo, and catching the following series of flights: Fargo to Chicago, Chicago to Kansas City (where we spent part of the night, about 5 hours, sleeping), Kansas City to Dallas, and Dallas to (finally) Baton Rouge on Thursday.

Despite all that insanity, we really didn’t lose that much biking time.  We just didn’t get much sleep.