It was as close to Planes, Trains and Automobiles as my travel life has ever come.

It was the first big Schnitker family trip we’d ever flown on (ahem - just in time for me to turn 30!). Sure, dad and I had flown some places, and Joni and the girls have flown some places, but the five of us had never flown somewhere together. Our yearly summer vacation consisted almost exclusively of boating trips to Table Rock Lake in southern Missouri.

That was it. Every single year.

But this year would be different. I’d been in Chicago for three years. Lindsey’s a senior at Iowa and preparing to graduate this summer. Kylie’s likely going to attend college in Arizona next year. The nest is emptying, so my step mom felt the time was running out for us to have a trip as a big ‘ol happy family.

(And of course, the Hawkeye football team decided to turn the ship around and win five of their last six games to clinch a berth in the Outback Bowl.)

And bless my step mother’s heart, she worked her tail off to round the thing up; booking the flights and the hotel, getting us five seats to the game together. Not an easy thing to do on short notice and with the few local (and all tiny) airways clogged with throngs of Husker and Hawkeye fans heading south for their respective bowl games.

With such short notice, there was going to be some kinks in the travel plans, first of which was driving to Kansas City — usually an easy way for Omahans to save a couple bucks — for our departure.

The drive was effortless, and we arrived with plenty of time to spare, much more we’d realize when we got to the US Airways terminal.

Which was where the less-than chipper counter employee informed us that our flight to Charlotte was delayed two hours because of mechanical problems (their fault), and that we were going to miss our connecting flight to Tampa. Which, in turn, meant we would have to wait and catch the first flight out of Charlotte to Tampa the following morning. Which would put is in Tampa at 10:30 a.m. ... just 30 minutes before the Outback Bowl kicks off.

Meaning we were going to likely miss the first half of the game.

This. Did not. Go over well.

My step mother’s neck began turning red. My dad turned from the counter, looked up and mouthed the words “mother fuck!” My sisters stood there semi-shocked. Sensing the tension, I stepped towards the back of the line.

Now I understand that flights get canceled and delayed all the time (perhaps more than the rest of my family, which does not fly nearly as much as I do). I get it. And I get that it does zero good to bitch and moan to the airline people about this. It is something they, like most unfortunate souls in the customer service industry, have practically zero control over.

BUT, this asshole was not working with us one god damn bit, despite the fact we’d pleaded to him that we needed to get to Tampa on time for this game. It was the whole reason we had even planned this trip. To miss the game, or any part of it, would defeat the vacation’s entire purpose.

And it would crush my step mother if this were to happen. Here was this trip she’d worked so hard to plan and spent so much money on; a little getaway with all the kids before the three of us were out of the house and possibly scattered across the country.

And now some shitty airline was going to ruin it all.

According to this prick, we absolutely did not have another choice in the matter, and as he booked us two hotel rooms near the Charlotte airport for that night, he assured us that our flight tomorrow would be on time.

Once things were sorted out I bellied up to the bar and ordered a drink. It was New Years Eve, after all.

The rest of the fam filed over looking glum and somewhat hopeless.

“I’m so sorry guys,” my step mom said, visibly upset.

We assured her that this was obviously not her fault.

While I was sipping on my beer, potential Plan Bs were running through my head. I whipped out my laptop and started checking for other US Airways flights from Charlotte to Florida. My logic being that if we could get somewhere close to Tampa tonight — Atlanta, Orlando, Jacksonville — we could rent a car and drive through the morning and at least know we were going to make the game. I didn’t have much faith in the airline at this point. What if the flight tomorrow morning was delayed? What if was canceled? We’d miss the game completely.

However, nothing looked too promising. Flights across the board were behind schedule.

(Also, as a Plan C, I started checking for spots to drink in Charlotte that night; damned if I was going to spend this Near Years Eve stuck in some Comfort Inn.)

However, our luck was appearing to improve as the expected departure time of our flight to Charlotte continued to bump up. Before we knew it, we were boarding the plane just a little less than an hour after it’s originally take off time, which would mean, if they made up some time in the air, that we could possibly still catch our connecting flight to Tampa.

We get on board and my dissatisfaction with US Airways continues as I realize they’re charging $2 for a bottle of water on the flight — and $7 for cocktails. Also, the flight attendants were total bitches. One of the older ones spent the last 20 minutes of the flight bitching and moaning about her day’s work to another attendant, which is fairly annoying when you can’t put your headphones on or get up from your seat.

I never realized how much I’d miss flying Southwest.

I must also add that this is where our lives connected with Bill, the large, somewhat dopey-looking Hawkeye fan who was sitting two rows ahead of us on the flight and whom my father had conversed with while waiting to board the plane. Little did I know then how much of an influence on this trip he’d make.

Well, the pilot had made up quite a bit of time in the air and it was looking like we were going to get to Charlotte about 10 minutes before our flight to Tampa was set to depart. Once we landed I had my dad and Joni hurry inside to see what gate that flight would be departing from, but since US Airways sucks so much, they didn’t even have the flight’s info listed on any of their monitors.

Bill and I, who’d had to wait for our carry on luggage, were trying to catch up with the rest of my family when he stopped and asked a US Airways employee if she could contact the gate our plane was at and have them hold the flight a couple minutes.

After a brief exchange, the lady said “Nope. Since it’s New Year’s they can’t hold it at all. Sorry.”

“What?” I said out loud. “What the hell difference does it make if it’s Near Years!?”

The lady turned away from me.

“What kind of idiot airline is willing to spend god knows how much putting us up in two hotel rooms for a night instead of holding a plane for five fucking minutes?” I ask, though the lady was clearly done listening to me.

Pissed, we storm off to the gate anyway just to see if by chance that lady was full of it.

She wasn’t. Our flight was long gone.

BUT, there was a flight to Jacksonville that had been delayed a couple of hours and wasn’t taking off for another hour or so.

The gears in my brain began moving.

“Hang on,” I said to my step mother. “Before we leave, lets ask this guy at the desk for the Jacksonville flight if we can possibly get on it. I’ll get on my Blackberry and look for some car rental places there and see if we can get a car tonight.”

She goes and talks to guy at the counter (who resembled Kenneth from 30 Rock in both visage and accent).

Turns out they did have room for us on the flight to Jacksonville, and the kind lady with Avis there would wait for us until our flight landed.

YES! We had pulled it off! We were going to get to Tampa for this damn game!

Drawbacks? For starters; the flight was filled with idiot Nebraska Cornhusker fans heading to the next day’s Gator Bowl.

Secondly, and more importantly, we were going to have to drive three hours across Florida and would not arrive in Tampa until 5 a.m. at the earliest. And the three bags we’d claimed would not make the Jacksonville flight (more great service from US Airways).

Being good wholesome Midwesterners that they are, my parents, feeling for poor Bill the Hawkeye, who’s stuck in Charlotte all alone, asked him if he’d like to come with us to ensure that he’d make the game.

He obliged, considering he’d never been to a bowl game before and was planning on turning back around and flying back home right after the game the following day. It would have totally sucked for him to get to the game at halftime, around noon, completely missing any tailgating, then hop right back on a flight home at 6 p.m.

At least we were staying down there for four days.

So Big ol Bill hops in the front passenger seat of the rented Chevy Trailblazer with the Schnitker clan and away we go.

Now, by all accounts, Bill seemed like a pretty reasonable guy. A bit goofy looking, but nice.

It hadn’t occurred to me until we got on the highway just how potentially awkward this could be. Yeah, he was a Hawkeye fan, and they’re pretty much all awesome in my book. But we didn’t know this guy from shit. What if he was crazy? What if he would say something wildly inappropriate to my sisters? The only comforting thing, I guess, was the fact that we’d just gotten off an airplane with him. At least we knew he didn’t have so much as a screwdriver on him.

It would turn out the only danger Bill posed was that he talked. And talked. And talked some more. He was like a Kenyan marathon runner of talking. Or better yet, he was like John Candy’s character in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Except instead of sell shower curtains as ear rings, he ran a business that removed unwanted animals from houses (which is actually just as bizarre).

As my dad was driving, he was so tired he could barely muster replies as Bill regaled him with stories about removing possums from attics and setting traps for coyotes.

But I suppose his stories did prevent my dad from falling asleep at the wheel.

Thankfully, Tampa is an easy town to navigate in at five in the morning and we found our hotel with ease.

We bid adieu to Bill, who had gotten a room at the same hotel as we had, and made our way to our room and crashed.

Eight a.m. came early, but it’s not everyday you get to tailgate for the Hawks in 80 degree weather in January, so it was no problem getting up after just a couple hours of sleep.

I had a beer in my hand by nine.

The high school buddies I’d met to tailgate who live in Tampa were still shitfaced from the night before, and all but one of them were kicked out of the game within five minutes of the kick off.

Which, coincidentally, was about how long it took for the Hawks to subdue the South Caroline Gamecocks; they had a two-touchdown lead with just under five minutes left in the first quarter.

The Hawks rolled and the game was a hell of a time, especially considering we’d found out just before kick off that the flight carrying our luggage from Charlotte to Tampa that morning — the flight we were supposed to be on — was...

Cancelled.