More Travel Misadventures

Over the weekend, Dave and I continued our streak of travel mishaps and annoyances (past events: locking ourselves out of our B & B wearing only robes, Karen sleeping through her alarm and not getting to the airport for Dave several times, missing numerous flights, getting really lost in the Canyon of the Ancients after nightfall, and driving in terrible conditions) on our trip to Austin for the Shiner Bash bike ride. American Airlines played their role in the fun, which left us vowing NOT to fly them again.

It all started with boxes. Bicycle boxes. Cycling enthusiasts know the difficulty of transporting bikes. Even though they are light, they usually incur an $80 charge (skis and golf clubs do not). But American has a policy that allows you to fly them for free if you purchase their boxes for $20. Or at least we were told that they had this policy when we started out. Dave dutifully picked up the boxes, which have a huge AA logo on the side, and we packed them up and were ready to go.

When we got to the airport, the ticket lady refused to let me check us in, even though I had all the luggage, because Dave was parking the car. Because of this, we missed our flight to Austin and had to go instead through Dallas with a connecting flight to Austin that would have gotten us into Austin too late for the start of the ride. But we took the flight to Dallas.

Then the new ticket lady said she had to charge for the bikes. No, no, we assured her, you don't because we are using AA boxes and can fly them for free. "Where did you get the boxes?" she asked. Um, we manufactured them ourselves, of course. We carefully stencilled the company logo on the side, using advanced techniques that allowed our handiwork to appear as uniform as a printing press. We're very talented. But she checked with a supervisor, who said we were right, and we flew to Dallas without paying extra for our bikes.

From Dallas we drove to Austin. In the pouring rain, thunder, and lightning. We saw at least a half a dozen accidents on our way, one severe enough to divert traffic off the interstate. We hydroplaned while riding inches from a semi. We watched a bolt of lightning hit the ground, produce a huge blue haze, and knock out all the power in the area - hotel signs, gas stations, street lights, everything. Fun!

But we eventually arrived in Austin and tried to find our hotel, which was difficult because we failed to print off the name of our hotel before we left. It started with an H, we thought, so we tried the Hyatt. Nope. The front desk manager called the Hilton for us. Nope. Finally, we called hotwire.com, whose number the front desk manager had to look up for us because cell phone information didn't have the listing (866.HOT.WIRE). Capitol Place Hotel. No H (but it was a Hilton Garden Inn affiliate, whatever that means). Head to the room, jump into some bike clothes, and off we go.

We sat at the starting location for some time, trying to decide whether or not to do the ride. The weather had followed us from Dallas - rain, thunder, and lightning. We came to a group decision that a 90 mile ride after a night of no sleep was not going to be fun. So we loaded up the bikes and went to breakfast.

The rest of the trip was great, catching up with old friends, rolling around Austin (the 13.86 miles I've actually ridden this month), having beers on 6th Street. We saw bad music in a club, good music on the street, and a report of the terrible Texas storms that we'd driven through on CNN.

Just an easy ride home to LA. Or not. Again with the bike boxes. The AA people assured us that the bike box scam they assumed we were trying to run was not going to fly with them. The reasons:

• They always charge for bikes except for trips overseas (or trips from LAX, apparently).
• The bike boxes were outside of their size restrictions (why would you sell a box that doesn't conform to your own size requirements?).
• Just how many free trips did we think we were going to get with our boxes, anyway? (Um, one round trip seems reasonable).

Words were exchanged. Calls were made. The supervisor walked away from me as I was talking to him. More words were exchanged. Although we never raised our voices and always called him sir, the supervisor threatened to prevent us from flying. We paid the fee and headed to the gate. Our bike shoes and allen wrenches prompted a bag search, and as we chatted with the TSA employee about the ordeal, even she was appalled, saying that the supervisor should have to apologize to us.

Which is ultimately what we want. Nick Juen of Austin, Texas, you were rude! You strike us as the W. type of Texan - arrogant, entitled, and not about to waver in the face of some uppity West Coast crazies with big ideas and facts on their side.

Apologize, Nick Juen, apologize.