The long road home

So, as I sit here in cedar rapids, IA, I think back...

I got back from italy wednesday last week. I then spent a few days at home until I departed on friday to visit emma who is working in ND. The flight there was about 7 hrs on 3 different carriers AND they lost my bags. I got my bags the next morning as they came in on the midnight flight from minneapolis to bismarck. The weekend was as fun as it could be in a state where cows outnumber people (650,000) 10-1.

Before I knew it, it was monday, emma had to go to work, and I had to sleep in until my flight at 1pm. My flight out took off dead-nuts ontime (ASIDE; the NW ticket lady almost guaranteed that my bags would get lost this time as well), and got into minneapolis about 10 minutes early. When I got in, I found out that the chicago flight was "delayed" with no ETD. Great!!! I found a bar near the gate where all the chicago folks were gathered. Ended up being only a 30 min delay, we get on the plane, and it went all downhill.

We were taxied to a parking spot on the tarmac and sat there long enough to watch "poseidon". I'm guessing we waited about 2.5-3 hrs out there before we got to leave. Luckily, there was a nice old lady next to me who liked to talk so I couldn't read my book or listen to my IPod. If she was hot... OK. as I was telling emma, old people, babies, and I all get along. Blast it in this case.

We flew, hit some crazy turbulence, heard weather in chicago at o'hare (ORD) was bad, then good, then bad, then "dynamic" (no shite!), so were we put in a holding pattern over iowa. We flew as long as we could without running out of fuel ( we had 30 min spare after idling on the tarmac 3 hrs). Then we found out we were being diverted to cedar rapids, IA for fuel and to await word from dispatch.

After being refueled and waiting and hour or so, the crew was told they'd "timed out" and were not allowed to go on anywhere. We were stuck in cedar rapids to fend for ourselves for hotels and they were TRYING to arrange a flight for the next day (cedar rapids isn't a United airport so there was little to no help). After getting a hotel and picking up our bags (they hadn't lost it yet), it was arounf 11pm, and we were told that the flight would be from cedar rapid to ORD on tuesday at 1120AM.

I got back to the hotel, had a few beers at the hotel bar before they closed at MIDNIGHT!!! I went to my room, called the united desk and heard that the flight was 620PM!!! Wtf!?!? So icalled the front desk, asked for late check out, and fell asleep watching some movie.

This morning I checked out at 150pm, walked to chili's to bide my time until I can get the hotel shuttle to the airport at 4pm and hopefully make it home tonight. I saw there is weather in chicago still, blast. Cross ur fingerd for me.

If I got stuck in minneapolis, I might've bothered emma's roommate for a place to crash, in chicago might've bothered TheSarah, but I made it to neither.

I'm gonna finish this before my typing degrades. I just spilled a beer!!!
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless