Last Exit to Queens

There are flights to Buffalo every two hours or so. Saint Jerome and I put our names on the stand by list for the next flight at 10. No go. We put our name in for the 12 PM flight. No go. The 2, 4, 6, 8 (who do we appreciate? ME ME ME! Goooooooooooooooooooo ME!) flights are all over-booked or over weight or both. Even from the first flight they were looking for volunteers to go on a later flight.

This weight limit thing is something else, especially on a flight to Buffalo. The planes are so tiny (they practically run on rubber bands) and the people flying have so much stuff. No one checks bags anymore due to the surcharges so they carry the maximum amount of bags plus other allowed items including baby carriages and car seats, etc. Not to mention that people are carrying so much more excess weight around their guts, especially to Buffalo. We were appalled to find that if you were unfortunate to be at the tail end of those boarding and the plane has reached its weight limit, you're S O L. We saw this happen on a Buffalo flight and a flight to Burlington, VT where the stranded passengers were told that there was room on the next flight. When is the next flight? 7:30 the next morning! If the overweight couple with the 4 and 6 year old kids didn't each have two bags, plus each kid and a bag PLUS two gigantic car seats, the last two people could have gotten on their flight. Saint Jerome and I were worried about getting on our flight since it was the last flight to Buffalo that day.

We finally boarded and boy did I elbow my way on to that plane. I wasn't going to be stranded overnight. Especially since we were there for about 14 hours! The plane was filthy and smellly but we endured the 50 minute flight, hailed a cab in Buffalo and got to Saint Jerome's sister's house at about 12:30 am. Boy were we tired!

Destination BUFFALO

Saint Jerome and I planned a vacation to the Greater Buffalo, NY area to visit his two sisters that live there. His twin sister was coming all the way from Sacramento, CA. Jill is almost a figment of our imagination since we seem to see her every five years or so. She likes her toasty warm coast.
She was visiting from 8/4 through 8/12 so we planned accordingly.

Since I couldn't take so much time off, Saint Jerome and I decided that the 6th through the 12th would be enough and it would give Jill a few days to bask solo in family affection and pampering (and to acclimate herself to the time change).

We didn't want to waste two days travelling Amtrak, so I trolled all of the discount travel websites and found the perfect round trip in and out of La Guardia. We leave LGA at 9:59 am arriving in Buffalo at 11:44. Late enough to have plenty of time to get to the airport and early enough arrival to have a pretty free day. Well . . .

Saint Jerome and I decide to test out the M60 bus to La Guardia. If we take the 6:40 am bus from 106th and Broadway, we should get us to the airport by 7:30 — plenty of time to get stuck in traffic and arrive in time for a 9 am boarding. We check in, get our boarding passes and go to our gate. On my way back from the bathroom (which is still clean at 8:30 am) I check the flights listed on the board at our gate. No 9:59 flight. Did they change gates? I go to the DEPARTURES board. No 9:59 am flight to Buffalo listed at all. I panic. WHERE IS OUR FLIGHT?! Was it cancelled? I check the boarding pass. THE FLIGHT IS AT 9:59 PM! Somehow I bought tickets for a PM flight. I could have sworn that it said AM on the Travelocity site! It was listed with all of the AM flights from LGA! I had gotten a confirmation email at the time but it didn't have the itinerary like usual and dumbass me didn't check when I printed out the itinerary from the website. What a JERK!

I am usually so so careful when booking flights oinline: checking, double- and triple checking all of the flight information because clicking purchase! (I still think it was listed as an AM flight!) The question now do we go home and come back or ty for an earlier flight? We decided to try for stand-by.