The worst ever

Words cannot describe the nightmare that was our plane ride from Houston to Denver. It was hands down, no competition my WORST travel experience ever. Things were going fairly smoothly until it was almost time to land in Denver. The captain announced that there was a thunderstorm at DIA and they would have to circle a few turns before being cleared for landing. OK. It is better than landing in a storm. He said it would be about an hour delay. That is not so cool, but still better than landing in a storm. After much longer than an hour, the captain announced that we would need to land in Colorado Springs to refuel. I guess he circled a few too many times and the gas light came on. So we landed in the Springs. At this point we were told that nobody could get off the plane, including people who actually live in Colorado Springs. We were not actually pulled up to a gate, so they had no way to let us off the plane, other than using emergency exits. I was fine with sitting tight until the Denver storm passed. However - fast forward 3 hours and we are still in the exact same spot! At this point the captain announces that he has exceeded the three hour ramp time and due to federal regulations he would have to let everybody off the plane. So we were all instructed to fasten our seat belts and prepare to taxi in to a gate. After a few moments of taxiing, the captain said that we were actually going to take off for Denver, but we would be 26th in line to land. Colorado Springs to Denver SHOULD have been a 15 minute flight. After half an hour or so, I realize that this plane is showing no signs of landing in Denver. The captain announced that we were having to circle some more due to the storm. Fast forward an hour and a half and we are being tossed around the plane like cats being kicked downstairs in a cage. All of a sudden, with no warning, the captain is flying down through the storm to land in Denver. The turbulence was worse than any I have ever experienced. Lee was holding tightly to Mariele, who was miraculously sleeping. I was holding tightly to Analese, who was buckled into the seat next to me with her CARES restraint. I had explained to Analese about cloud bumps (turbulence). After a few minutes of me thinking the plane was going to surely drop out of the sky, Analese told me, "Mommy, the cloud bumps are making my tummy hurt." For the record, Analese had NEVER vomited in her life. I was not quite prepared with the one undersized little, tiny barf bag that was in our row. Poor Analese tossed her cookies (and peanut M&Ms and various plane snack junk that she had been eating since we had long since missed dinner). It was a massive amount of vomit, and it was all over both of us. I used every wet wipe in my purse, as well as a travel pack of Kleenex that the nice lady in front of us gave me. My efforts to clean up this mess did not even begin to touch it. Thankfully and miraculously the plane did land about 7 minutes later. I asked the snippy flight attendant, who was growing snippier by the minute if she had anything to help with the clean-up. She only had a bag of melting ice. I mean, get real 50 year old childless lady! You really expect me to clean up my four year old with ice water??? Luckily we got our luggage right away and I took Analese into the bathroom and cleaned her up with warm water and soap and changed both of our clothes. Total plane time was 8 hours, and we did not originate from Hawaii. The rental car company that held our reservation was CLOSED. Luckily we did find a shuttle to a rental car company that was open and had cars. It was 1 a.m. when we finally arrived at our rental house. It felt like 2 a.m. to us. I still had to bathe the kids and myself. The only way that trip could have been worse is if the plane had actually crashed. I am still recovering from the worst 4th of July ever. The 5th of July was nice, though. We made a day trip up Mount Evans, so hopefully I will be able to share some photos of that later.