A Trip from Hell--My Trip to Cheyenne

This was the year I was planning to be really ready for the National Spelling Bee. In contrast to previous years, where I showed up in Cheyenne on the night before the competition, this year I would plan to fly into Denver on the Thursday evening (June 12) before the Saturday (June 14) competition, drive to Cheyenne late Thursday night and have all day Friday to study, relax and gather my forces for a tough competition on Saturday. Indeed, I had even cleared my calendar for Thursday in Salem (OR), where I live, so that I could have a "slow day" before my travel. The purpose of this and the next essay is to show how all my plans unraveled and made me uncharacteristically harried as I went to Cheyenne. I am not writing this for sympathy, since I feel I was as relaxed as possible during the competition; it is just part of my story.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

All my plans were going smoothly until I received an email late in May from Victoria Thompson of CBS Evening News. They wanted to do a story on me for broadcast after the bee. Steve Hartman, ace reporter, would be the one officially in charge, even though Victoria would interview me in Salem (the story will air on Friday, June 20). We finally decided on a time in the morning of Thursday, June 12. They would come at 9 and be out by noon; I would then take a later plane to Denver. Ok, my plans changed a little but I could still have my Friday as I wanted it. The interview, actually, was a pleasure. Victoria, a fellow Brown Univ. graduate, is alert, engaging, thoughtful in questioning and sensitive enough to the flow of the conversation to take it where it naturally seems heading. She also was developing a kind of "cooking" or "food theme" for me--since I admitted to her that some of the words I missed in the past were food-related terms (such as cappelletti in 2005). Thus, she brought along some food products (kumquat, echinacea, orecchiette, chiocciole and idiazabal cheese) to see if I could spell them. I actually missed the last two--both words weren't in the dictionary.

The CBS interview began a little after 8 a.m. (I was mistaken on the time, and had to get dressed really quickly) and concluded about 11:30. But then, other interviewers began to call. The Associated Press out of Denver wanted a story; I talked to them until about noon. Then, the AARP of Oregon had to get in on the fun; they came by at about 12:15 for 30 minutes to take pictures and ask questions. Finally, I had to kick everyone out so that I could pack and get out of the house for my plane. No studying or calm Thursday, I guessed.

Ah, The Plane

I actually got to the Portland Airport for my 4:49 p.m. flight about 3:00 p.m. Phew. Time to study or relax, I thought. But the previous plane to Denver had been delayed and was just about ready for take-off at 3:00 p.m. With some deft maneuvering, I was able to get one of the last seats on the 3:00 plane. I was secretly congratulating myself as the plane taxied down the runway and rose in the air. I now would have at least two extra hours in Cheyenne that night, I thought. Then, the problems began. Air cabin pressure which, to some of us, seemed abnormally low, got lower. About 30 or so minutes into the flight, the pilot broke in to say that the cabin pressure system wasn't functioning well, and that they didn't think they ought to try to make it over the Rockies without someone looking at it. So, we beat a hasty retreat to Portland, landing at about 4:15 p.m. They had us sit in the plane until it was determined that the plane would be out of service for the day. Quickly I disembarked and headed over to my original flight, the 4:49 to Denver. But, as expected, my seat had been given away and the plane was now full. I would have to "get it line" with those from the 3:00 p.m. flight in order to get another flight to Denver.

Here was my predicament at that moment. Upon getting off the 3:00 p.m. flight, I was given a number. Mine was "69," out of about 130 people on the flight. Thus, I was 69th in line to have United book me on another Denver flight. There were no more flights to Denver from Portland that evening. I decided to wait around for a while to see what would happen. By 5:15 (about 30 minutes later), they were only up to number "7." Well, what would you do in this situation? There was no chance that I could fly out on Thursday, and the Friday flights might or might not have been full, too. After giving all those interviews for the media, I felt I had to show up in Cheyenne. Indeed, I wanted to participate.

So, in one brief moment, I made a decision. I would drive to Cheyenne. I knew it was about 1150-1200 miles, and that didn't bode very well for me. I would have to drive about 20 hours straight, I felt, in order to get there. I also lose an hour driving, because I will go to Rocky Mountain Time. Thus, I was figuring that I could rent a car and be there by 3 or 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon. This would be if I stopped nowhere, slept not at all, but just showed up. I felt I would be like Lisa Nowak, that female astronaut in the news last year, who allegedly strapped a diaper around herself while driving from FL to TX so she wouldn't be distracted by anything as she tried to make it to her lover.

I would also incur huge additional expenses, with the last- second rental car, expensive gas, etc. It would be, from almost all angles, a dumb decision to make the trip by car. What did I do? Of course, I decided to rent a car.

Driving to Cheyenne

The car, with a full tank of gas, cost me $275 for four days. I forfeited use of my airplane ticket ($260) because of renting the car. My mother felt that I should go to United Airlines and try to throw my legal weight around to get the $260 refunded, but I won't pursue that route. I could have probably left the car off in Denver and flown home Sunday night on my original ticket, but the drop-off fee would exceed what it cost for me to drive the car back to Oregon from Cheyenne. Thus, it was clear to me. I had to drive all night Thursday and well into Friday, and then drive back to Oregon Sunday morning (more about that in the next essay). I managed to get the car and was on the road by 6:00 p.m. I already had had a long day, as you know, and I was just starting on a trip that was actually 1165 miles. The car allegedly got 26 miles per gallon; it was a car I never would otherwise drive but because I got it at the last second, I didn't have much choice. The rental car agent kindly told me that the average weekend saw about 90 rentals a day; this weekend had over 200 per day. They even had to "borrow" some cars from another agency. That shut me up, and I was grateful to be on the road with a full tank of gas with a car with 14,000 miles on it.

The next essay chronicles some of my journey and my inner "time clock" over the next three days.

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