Off to Baton Rouge... the long way

Off to Baton Rouge to watch LSU play Alabama.

I've never been to a real college football and an SEC game between LSU and Alabama at Death Valley in Baton Rouge is as good as it gets IMO.   And what an amazing experience it was.

But I almost didn't get there as bad weather at DFW on Friday closed DFW for 4 hours and caused utter chaos at AA.   My easy Saturday morning trip got thrown out the window when AA started cancelling flights including my 6am DEN-DFW flight.  

Everything else to Baton Rouge was sold out.  Denver to New Orleans didn't work either.  My best option seemed to be a 9pm DEN-Houston and then  drive to Baton Rouge or connect to DFW to catch my now sold out DFW-BTR flight.  Fortunately a great CK agent (thanks to DFW_CK) re-routed my on the midmnight Denver-Charlotte redeye, connecting back to DFW so I can catch my DFW-BTR flight.      I bid Mrs. SFO777 adieu at 9:30p and headed to DIA.

We arrived 20 minutes early in Charlotte with plenty of time as my connecting gate was in the same concourse and only 4 gates away.

We arrived early at DFW.  I was going to go to the Capital One Lounge in terminal D but saw that the plane for my Baton Rouge flight was in the midst of rolling delays in Abilene.  

So I headed to try to catch the earlier Baton Rouge flight.

This looked pretty bleak as the flight was sold out and I'm #7 on the standby list. 

Amazingly, they cleared 6 standbys.  So I missed it by one.  Over to the D Terminal to wait.

Since my BA Gold One World Emerald status gives me access to the Flagship Lounge, I stopped in there first the check out the offerings.

LOL. Yeah that looks like AA.

Fortunately, the Capital One Lounge is right next door.

Much more inviting.

With real food including a to go section.

Delicious Croque-Monsieur - ish with what tasted like a peaches.  

AA figured out the Abilene mechanical and my inbound arrived.  Looks like only a 40 minute delay today.

My lunch from the To Go section of the Capital One Lounge.

We arrived in Baton Rouge around 12:30pm as the clouds and rain had moved on.