Delta Deliquency

Two posts ago I referred to the troubles Rob and I had in getting to Portland. We were scheduled to leave from Detroit at 7:02 pm with a layover in Cincinnati. I left Zeeland at 2:30 so that I could pick up Rob by 5 and get to the airport 90 minutes early. Unfortunately, we did not make our flight by 1 minute! One single minute. Here is a list of what could have happened to get us on that flight:

If...

• Delta hadn't delayed our connection and forced us to take an earlier plane - at 6:25.
• I had drove faster from Zeeland, although I was already going uncomfortably fast
• There wasn't construction on US-23, delaying me by 10 minutes
• I hadn't listened to Rob's advice that US23 was faster than 127/94 (it usually is)
• I had gotten off at the right exit on US23
• Rob had told me signs for the Main street exit in Ann Arbor actually said business 23
• I had read Rob's email which specifically said exit 3
• There wasn't construction on 94 heading to the airport
• We had gone to the right terminal first
• The first shuttle we saw to bring us to the right terminal had stopped for us
• The e-ticket machine at the Delta check-in had recognized us and given us our boarding passes
• We didn't have to wait for 5 minutes in line at the Delta counter
• The agent that started helping us wasn't a brand new employee in training and therefore incompetent
• The agent had called the gate as soon as she saw she couldn't print our boarding passes since we weren't 30 minutes early, we were only 29 (by the way, isn't the rule 20 minutes?? that is what I've always heard)
• The gate let us come through when the agent finally called them 10 minutes later to ask
• The agent found that there was an available 7:05 Northwest flight prior to 6:30 (remember, we were at the counter by 5:56)

So we didn't make it by the slimmest of margins. It was comical in the end because at least we didn't miss out on our Mt. Saint Helens hike.