Stuck in Chicago
Winter Harbor Marina
We decided to fly home on this trip, because we didn’t want to
waste days away from the boat or our granddaughter. We thought our flights home
were horrible, but in hindsight they were as smooth as glass. Our adventure in
getting back to the boat has been insane! We left Austin on Wednesday morning,
flew through security and the flight left right on time, we even landed at
O’Hare early…we should have known that was a bad omen. Everything went downhill from there and the nightmare began. First we were told our flight would be
30 minutes late, my friend checked online and said they were telling her it was
2 hours late….then the flight was canceled. The bad news was every flight going
east from O’Hare was canceled! That put 1000’s of people trying to reschedule
and being placed on standby. Every flight was already over booked, they were asking
for volunteers to fly later…definitely no room for standby passengers. They did find seats on a flight that would
leave on Friday morning…at first we said no way. Instead we thought we'd rent a
car and drive the 12 hours to Syracuse…that sounded like an easy option.
Well…there wasn’t a rental car in the whole Chicago area for a one way rental.
Ok…so we’ll take the train from Union Station to Syracuse…no, no way...all sold
out for the next three days. The Friday tickets were sounding better by the
moment, so we returned to the airport and reserved the seats, while we waited
for stand by…hoping to get out earlier. We had no luck on the last flight to
Syracuse on Wednesday night, so we needed a hotel…that was another adventure.
We went online and looked everywhere and couldn’t find a room, so we thought
we’d be stuck in the airport all night. Our wonderful son, who is great at planning
trips, found us a room that was close by, Super 8, nothing fancy, but clean and
away from the insanity of the airport.
On Thursday we returned to the airport and started the
craziness again. We had to stand in line to receive stand by tickets and then
we stood in line for security, and then the waiting began. Every flight to
Syracuse was overbooked and they were asking for volunteers to take the next
flight…even though we were high on the stand by list, there was no way we were
going to get on a flight. We stayed at the airport until the 4:00 flight took off and then gave up and took the shuttle back to the hotel. We did have our
tickets in hand for the flight on Friday and we were assured there would be no
problems…ok, I had faith and hoped all would go well. After checking back into
the Super 8, we walked across the street and bought a few items we had been
without for two days. It’s amazing how much better you feel once you take a
shower, wash your hair and brush your teeth….and of course the beer we bought
did help a little. We were resigned that we were here for another night and
made the best of it. We had a nice dinner, relaxed and got caught up on sleep.
Friday morning we went back to the airport and found out we had priority
access, which meant we didn’t have to wait in any lines...wow, finally a perk for
waiting 48 hours to get to our destination! No wait in the security line and we got to
board first…I’m sure that was worth waiting for. Our flight left on time and we
finally arrived in Syracuse at 12:24…only two days late. Our checked bag and
friends were waiting for us and we were out of the airport in record time.
To say the least…we've never been so happy to be aboard
The Pearl, what a wonderful place to be. We enjoyed a late lunch sitting by the
water and making plans for our cruise tomorrow. It feels wonderful to be home!
I hope our next adventure is a little more fun.
The view on the way to Syracuse
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