I recently changed jobs ( I know, I haven't updated my resume here, but one thing at a time ), my new job requires me to travel. I don't think it will be extensive travel, but we shall see.

Any way, I flew out of a medium sized ( small ) regional airport Thursday on my way to another medium sized ( small ) regional airport in Indiana. Well, Mother Nature didn't know about my travel plans, so she developed a few thunderstorms in my travel path. The upshot was, we had to divert to Champagne Il to refuel because we didn't have enough fuel to fly a holding pattern around O'Hare. Once we land at Champagne, I find out that my connecting flight has been cancelled. I realized that I was about a 4 hour drive from my destination and I thought what the heck, maybe they will let me off the plane so I can get to where I need to be....well no dice there, I have to fly to O'Hare. After refueling we took a short, 30 minute flight to O'Hare. Once we landed, I get my credit for the cancelled flight, get a rental car, and start my 3 or so hour drive to my destination. It should have been a 3 hour drive except for the never ending road construction around Chicago. I bet it took an hour to go 15 miles.....any way a little more than 4 hours later I make it to my destination only 4 hours late. Too late to do any work that day, so it was just a long travel day.

Friday afternoon after actually having a very productive day, I head back to the airport. My first flight is on time...woo hoo, but it is overbooked. So we have to wait at the gate until someone is guilted into giving up their seat because the airline can't count. ( At first I thought maybe there was some type of weight restriction, or something like that...nope just too many bodies, not enough seats. ) It is an interesting process, listening to the airline offer money and such to passengers to correct the airlines mistake. Any way, we end up leaving about 30 minutes late. No worries there, my connecting flight doesn't leave for at least an hour after I land. I get to O'Hare after a very uneventful flight. After landing, I check to find my connecting flight and everything is good to go. After milling around a little bit, I head to my departure gate. When I get to the gate, it is packed with people for the flight that was supposed to leave about two hours before my flight. So we all wait, after about 15 fifteen minutes, the airline announces that flight has been cancelled. So the folks on my flight continue to wait, about 20 minutes until our flight time and we haven't started boarding yet, someone asks the counter staff what is going on. The counter staff check and we have been changed to a new gate and have been delayed 45 minutes. So we all head to the new gate and proceed to wait for the flight. I start having some concerns about the flight being on time, when the departure time is at 7:15 pm and there is no plane at the gate at 6:45......long story short the plane finally shows up at 7:18 pm, we board and have an uneventful flight home.

My little brother called me while I was away, had a good laugh at my expense, and told me that to everyone that does not travel, it ( travel ) appears glamorous...hence the inspiration for my ramblings here.

So some further updates.......

I fly through Chicago quite frequently and my last three flights home have been delayed any where from 2 -4 hours each. The last flight was really special, after 2 gate changes and a two hour delay the plane finally showed up with no working bathroom. So what was really surprising is the amount of beer and wine that the other passengers consumed during the flight. I am not sure what they were thinking, but it made for an interesting flight and an even more interesting landing as all these folks made a mad dash to the bathroom.

If I run into any other interesting travel happenings I will add them.