Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Getting to Ohio

What a chore that was. I was coming out to Columbus, OH to THE Ohio State University (that was for Cam) for Junior Nationals. Our flight was leaving DIA at 2:45 on Southwest. I took Anna and Siobhan yesterday with Rin coming today and Eric on Thursday.

So I get to the airport about 1:15 and as I am checking in am told our flight is delayed until 5:50 and that the connection at Midway will be delayed until 1:00 am. After some looking around for alternatives, we found none. I resigned myself to a day of travel hell and headed to the gate. The girls were at the gate and the gate now said 4;15...alright not bad. So I wander off to get some lunch. I am on the phone with Breeze when Anna calls and says we are boarding. Its 2:30! That's never happened to me. We were sitting there, just waiting for it to all go downhill, but off we went.

Now the flight to Midway is disconcerting enough. Its a small airport, short runways, you look like you are going to land on a house, but when I looked out the window and all I saw was snow, the bumps were a little less fun. I fly a god bit, once or twice a month, but I still don't love it. It was not made better by reading Freakanomics on the flight and seeing the research that flying in a plane is just as dangerous as driving a car, when adjusted for time. We slam to the tarmac in what looks like a blizzard and deplane in Chi town.

Now Midway has been relegated to little brother status in Chicago by O'Hair, but it is still really small. The girls went exploring and we back in 10 minutes. There is no coffee shops and not much to do. We had 2 hours. Slowly but surely the snow slowed. Our gate was changed twice and when 8:10 came, we had a gate, we had a plane, but we were not boarding. The pilot was ready to go but the crew looked confused. They finally boarded all 20 of us. Yes 20. Thats how hard a travel day it was for most. 20 of us made our flight to COlumbus. I was talking to one of the flight attendants and she said they were supposed to go to Minneapolis. However, that flight got canceled, our plane wasn't there so they sent them. How about that. You end up in Columbus for the night, just to get me and 19 others there.

D-Icing and such took a while and we got int o Ohio at 11:30. Only 90 min late. The renal car was another story for another time, but we rolled into the Downtown Courtyard at 12:15.. Just another day on the road.

No comments: