Yes, 24 hours after leaving austin, the good people at American Airlines finally got me to my destination....well, almost.
The tale of my nearly 24 hour excursion is filled with twists of fate and unexpected turns and would most likely have made Odysseus even a little jealous. Let me give you a recap.
1. Fri. 5:40 PM - Finally get off the ground after a 40 minute rain delay in austin (a problem with my 60 min layover in Dallas)
2. 7:00 - sit on runway in Dallas for 20 min, I can see my plane sitting at the gate as we taxi to the terminal
3. 7:00 - 7:05 - run to terminal to catch my connecting flight
4. 7:06 - Discover that I have missed my connection flight
5. 7:10 - Discover that (quite unbelievably) there were no other flights (or combinations of flights) I could take that would get me to Champaign on Fri
6. 7:11 - book flight from Dallas-Chicago-Champaign for first thing Saturday morning
7. 8:00 PM - 6:30 AM - spend a lovely evening at the extravagant Motel 8 on West Airport Freeway in Irving, texas
8. 8:30 AM - flight for Chicago departs Dallas without incident
9. (happening concurrently with 10.) - Large moist air masses from the Pacific and Gulf begin to merge somewhere over Iowa and Minnesota
10. 8:30 - 10:30 AM - Enjoy the nice scenery from my window seat, but notice that it is unusually cloudy
11. 10:30 AM - Informed by the captain that major thunderstorms in Chicago have forced air traffic control to direct all incoming flights into circling patterns
12. 10:30 - 11:30 AM - Circle Chicago
13. 11:30 AM - land in Chicago, taxi to terminal is a bit quicker this time.
14. 11:30 - 11:35 - run to my terminal to catch my 11:30 connection flight (even though there should be delays - I mean, I flew around Chicago for an hour, so surely my connection flight leaving Chicago will also be delayed, right?)
15. 11:35 - Wrong
16. 11:36 - Book yet another connection flight to Champaign at 4 PM - a mere 4 hour layover
17. 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM - Drink over-priced beer and watch football at the Airport Chili's
18. 2:30 PM - Discover that the 4 PM flight to Champaign has been cancelled. Next flight is at 6 PM
19. 2:31 PM - book flight from Chicago to Bloomfiled, Il. Phone Gabby to ask if she would mind driving the 45 min to come pick me up
20. 2:30 - 3:00 PM - run across three concourses to get to my gate, all the while thinking that O'hare could probably host a marathon
21. 3:05 - get on plane and depart from Chicago
22. 4 PM - arrive in Bloomfield with Gabby and Maggie waiting for me.
Perhaps my story, The Thibodyssey, if you will, can someday find its way into an inner-city high school curriculum.
Now, for the highlight of this post:
Code Brown. I will leave the following set of pictures to help you discern the meaning of this deceptively simple, cryptic phrase.
Here are a few of Maggie playing (dog) house
I'll try to post another update sometime this week. If my return trip goes anything like my Thibodyssey, I may end up posting a drawn-out, cantankerous diatribe.
No comments:
Post a Comment