Yaaaaaawn. Oh my. That was an epic journey (not my
MOST epic but ranks right up there.)
Our flight was supposed to leave at 8:50. First delay was 10 minutes then pushed back to 9:30, then again. Then we were told we could go back and get our luggage at baggage claim and recheck if we needed to; 5 minutes later, they said we were cleared to leave!
(All those people who left to get stuff from their luggage?!) We board the plane and sit around while they try to find the missing folks who went off for their luggage.
Finally up in the air and get the monster to admit she's tired and get her to go to sleep -- after thoroughly reading the safety card.
(She was never a "fall asleep at random" child.) The flight attendant said that was the first time a safety card's ever been read.
We were up in the air for what seemed like ages (yapping non-stop about Disney
) when hubbo checks the flight tracker. We were JUST passing Atlanta?! Then we had to circle St. Louis multiple times because the storms were close to our left and another storm moving through Chicago meant we weren't cleared to head into Chicago yet. Another half-hour of circling and the pilot came on and said they were heading toward Chicago but may have to return to St. Louis to refuel if the storm hadn't moved out. This time, we skirted the storms quite closely. (Back in my young and crazy days of being in love and our long-distance relationship, I was flying out from Baltimore to Chicago in a similar situation although that time we were a bit
too close to the storms and lightning struck our wing. Guess I'm old-hat at this now?
) Our pilots were total ROCK STARS: Cat-and-mouse with the storms and probably traffic control, coupled with the smoothest landing we've ever had at Midway.
We got in shortly before 1 a.m.
When we got off the plane, there were crowds of people waiting to welcome home Honor Flight (WWII Veterans) folks who had been delayed from a visit to D.C. Bands played, people cheered. It was very sweet.
All the havoc from the storms totally confused the ground staff at Midway so no one knew what was going on with the luggage. After waiting around for an hour, we got our bags and had an interesting cab ride home -- the guy was FALLING ASLEEP!
Never again.
We'll drive to the airport from now on.
Shew. Shame we didn't book an earlier flight yesterday, it would've been canceled and we could've gone BACK to Disney.
Gotta go get cleaned up and buy some food for this bachelor's pad of a house! Back later.