Not quite according to plan

[ellarien]

I should be in the air on the way to Tucson by now. I'm not.

I left Sheffield-home at 4.15am, to catch the 5.11 flight to the Manchester airport, where I was second in the check-in line for my Chicago flight and stood around for half an hour while the staff were setting up. All went well until we reached Chicago in a snowstorm and the conditions weren't fit to land, whereupon we were diverted to Minneapolis to refuel. No-one could leave the plane, and apparently they didn't even take on any extra drinking water, but at least we could use cellphones. After a while we took off again, circled over Madison for an hour or so, and finally landed in Chicago four hours late. I could still have made my very loosely connecting flight to Tucson, but when I got through Immigration and Customs and went to drop off my bag, they told me the Tucson flight was canceled and directed me -- and my bag -- over to T3 to rebook. After much trundling around the airport I ended up with a discounted hotel room -- quite a nice one -- and a 6.45 am flight via Dallas. So here I am, for now, somewhat past actually wanting to sleep.

The snow is only a few inches deep, but it's quite pretty, particularly on the giant holiday wreath attached to one of the airport buildings. They haven't taken the decorations down yet, but Manchester's were gone. (Manchester had purple decorations when I arrived last week. Fresh from American color-coded holidays, I couldn't help reading it as some kind of well-meaning attempt at interfaith inclusiveness, but being England someone probably just thought it looked pretty.)

Comments

[ceelee.livejournal.com]

ah, ha, you were in my neighborhood whilst in Minneapolis! Sorry it was only an airplane, only stop!

[ellarien]

I don't think they even let the crew off the plane -- just handed the customs paperwork through the door. I do think they could have figured out some way to deliver a couple of crates of bottled water, though.