Taking an Airport Break

We arrived home after 8 days away on Monday at 2 am. I'm calling a break from airports & airplanes. Here's a timeline of our travels to explain why:

Friday:

• Call to check our flights before leaving the house and everything is on time!
  
• Leave the house at 8:30 am to arrive at the airport by 9:30 am for our 11:30 am departure
• Arrive at the gate to see that our flight is delayed 1 hour due to the Windy City having windy weather
  
• Sat at the gate and saw that our flight was pushed back an additional half hour-figures
• Finally, take off & arrive in Chicago with 45 minutes to spare before our connecting flight is supposed to leave
• Check the monitors to find out where we need to jog to next. Having to step over people and guide ourselves through a human mass made me a little nervous.
• Our flight was canceled, so I stand in line while Geoff stays with Maleia in an overcrowded gate. We obviously weren't the only ones with a canceled flight.
• I get our re-booked tickets which state we'll leave at 7:30 pm. Only a 3 hour wait!
• As we sit in our gate reading and eating lunch, we hear of 5-6 different flights being canceled. So, I check ours just in case-CANCELED!
• We call the pastor and decide to try to fly into a larger airport, and reroute ourselves to go to Minneapolis.
• Since we had changed flights, we change gates. I call the airline to make sure our luggage is switched to the new flight and am told that this is impossible to do, and that our luggage will arrive at the original destination on Saturday morning. This is frustrating, but manageable.
• Board our new flight and realize it is quite hot since there's no air conditioning running.
• The pilot says there is water leaking into the cockpit, so the mechanics have to check it out.
• 45 minutes later the pilot announces that it could be an easy fix or one that would take many many hours - still VERY hot!
• After sitting on the plane for 2 hours, we finally get ready to take off.
• 30 minutes after that, we finally do take off on our 1 1/2 hour flight!
• Arrive in Minneapolis to take a 2 1/2 hour drive to Greenwood, WI
• Original arrival time: 2:30 pm; Actual arrival time: 1:30 am Saturday
  

Saturday:

• In the morning call to check on the luggage, it has not arrived and will come in around 11 pm possibly. More likely on Sunday.
• Since Geoff is preaching on Sunday, he needs church clothes. I wouldn't mind fresh underwear.
  
• A quick 20 minute trip to Wal-mart to get all needs to get through to Monday since our schedule was full and no trips to the airport would be able to be squeezed in. $150 later we have fresh undies, socks, church clothes, diapers, shoes, a fresh shirt for our activity on Saturday night, and some nice extras like deodorant and combs.
  

Monday:

• Hallelujah for clean clothes!

The flights back were less harried, but we still had 2 hour delays here and waiting over an hour for our luggage there (I guess just as long as your luggage gets on a flight to your destination it doesn't matter if you are on that flight or not). We were hoping to be in bed around midnight, but it was 2 am. I guess it could have been worse! I just want a break from the airline industry!