One Last Time

This is our last week here in Chicago. The weather made sure that our last flight out here on Monday would be memorable.

When Ron took me to the airport, it was snowing pretty heavily. That did not thrill me to say the least. While I am much better about flying than I was before, I’m still not the seasoned traveler that some in my family are. I still get nervous, especially in bad weather.

We boarded on time and even pushed back from the gate on time. Because of the snow, before hitting the runway we headed over to the de-icing area. This process only takes a few minutes. Once de-iced, we started taxiing for our runway.

When you taxi out, you reach the point where you make a big turn and as soon as you turn, you are lined up for take off. That’s when the jets really start humming and you’re thrown back into your seat during acceleration. (Ok, that has nothing to do with my story here today, it just happens to be my favorite part of the flight so I wanted to mention it!) We are getting very close to that turning point, and I can finally see airplanes ahead of us, making that turn. I know our turn is close at hand.

Suddenly, two fire trucks and an ambulance come rushing down the taxi way next to us. They pull up just short of where the runway actually is and waited there. A minute or so later, a plane came in for a landing on this same runway and as soon as it was down, the emergency vehicles went tearing out after it. Hmm. At least it wasn’t our plane! I did look at the plane coming in, and I didn’t notice any flames shooting out of the back, so I’m not sure what the issue was.

Anyway, the next plane then makes the turn and takes off. Only one more plane before it is our turn. Suddenly, instead of following the plane ahead of us to make the left hand turn to take off, we turn right! HEY! Even in my challenged directional state, I know we just turned the wrong way to leave. I hate it when that happens. We taxied for a little while and then pulled over. The pilot then announced that we were just given a new flight plan to Chicago and if we take this flight plan we will need more fuel. They needed to clear a gate area for us to refuel. So, we sat. And sat. And sat. Finally we started moving. We pulled up to a gate, and the refueling began.

I should note that I have been up since 4:00 a.m. If I’m lucky, I end up napping for the hour flight and feel a little bit better about having to work all day. The delays on the ground waiting for the gate to come back to and the refueling did afford me ample time for a good TWO hour nap! This was the best Monday I’ve had here!

After refueling, we headed over do go through the de-icing process once again. After that, we were given priority status on a runway and off we were. This is one of the few flights I was actually awake for!

As a side note, I had my camera with me on the plane. As most of you know, Dad has recently added into his reality the fact that he has actually been on a plane and flown. When I ask him about what he saw out the window, he couldn’t tell me. Obviously because he’s never been in a plane! In my mind, that has to make it hard for him. He believes he has flown, but he can’t picture what he would have seen. So my idea was to get as many pictures as I could out of my window for him. I snapped during take off, during the flight, during a steep bank to my side of the plane and during the landing. Maybe I can fill in a few holes in his “memory”.

Anyway, once airborne it really was a smooth flight over here. Now my only problem was I had to pee. If anyone has ever been in an airplane bathroom before, you know it’s really not a place you want to be. But it was getting to be an emergency with me. I didn’t think I’d make it the rest of the flight. Darn the bottle of water I took with me to drink at the airport. I wasn’t the only one in this state either. I think most of the people on this flight ended up back in the bathroom. Due to the long delay, I think no one could hold their coffee.

Finally, I gathered my courage and my full bladder and unbuckled and headed in. The bathroom isn’t much bigger than I am. I can’t tell you how hard I prayed for no turbulence while I was finishing my business. I had visuals of the turbulence sucking my butt right into the toilet and those emergency crews having to be summoned to pull my happy ass out of there. Yes, I have an overactive imagination. But I digress.

Things came out just as they should have. I finished up, made it back to my seat and got buckled back in. Life was back to normal.

Our one hour flight ended up being over three hours. And the worst part was that our new flight plan didn’t take us over Wrigley Field! That was one picture I definitely wanted to get for Dad! Oh well. At least we got here in one piece. We landed in beautiful warm sunny weather here in Chicago! What’s up with that? I left Cleveland, a town where the snowplows were all over the runways to come to Chicago where the weather was clear. Something is wrong with that picture!

After seven fun filled weeks, there are only two more wake ups and I’m home for awhile. I am ready.