Best Available Alternate Flight

I was on the East Coast for the earthquake, and I got out just before the hurricane.  Because of the 'you can't get there from here' fact of where I live, I had three flights which were carefully choreographed to get me from Rochester NY to the small city an hour from Dodge City via Washington DC and Denver CO in just under 9 hours.  The problem was the DELAYED status of my first flight.  Which left me begging the flight attendant to open the the door before the plane came to a complete stop on the tarmac in DC and sprinting through the Dulles airport.  (I was very glad for my couch to 5k training, because it is roughly 3.1 miles from gate B8 to gate C17.)   It was not pretty, but it was effective, as my flight status on my Denver connection was NOW BOARDING.  When I finally had a chance to power on my electronic device I was already in Denver, and I had a voice mail from United Airlines saying that because of the delay on my flight from Rochester they had booked me on the best available alternate flights which would have me spend the night in Washington and spend another 24 hours en route.  I got just two things to say to that:

1.  Clearly they underestimated me. 
2.  It's good to be home.

Side note:  I could tell what city I was in by the people in the airport:
Cody:  Older Japanese Americans wearing Yellowstone sweatshirts, Cowboys with hats
Denver: Burly men in camouflage with fly rods as carryons
Cleveland:  Amish men in suits
Rochester:  Businessmen in suits and ties
Washington, DC:  Blurry men, slow people
Denver:  Tourists with cowboy hats
Cody:  The STP waiting with a kiss and a hug--See #2 above