En Route

We’re in the middle of the rather odious exercise known as air travel.  Everything is hurry up and wait.  It is recommended that you arrive at the airport three hours before scheduled departure for international flights.  We dutifully arrived a little over three hours before departure and now we’re cooling our heels at the gate for, you guessed it, three hours. It took all of twenty minutes to check in and get through security. So we’re becoming very familiar with the C concourse at Chicago O’Hare Airport.

And this even after some typical Chicago traffic slowdowns and poor visibility due to rain.  At one point I saw a car and a semi truck attempt to merge into the same lane.  Both appeared to realize it before they hit, but the car overcorrected and lost control.  It slid across two lanes and sideswiped the concrete barrier with a resounding crunch.  I had just enough time to see that it was still pointed in the right direction and slowing before another truck obscured my view.  Since I was five lanes removed and still clipping along at 55 I did not attempt to stop, as I figured that would create even more problems.  I’m sure others saw it, too.

Just a few miles further, two lanes came to a screeching stop and a car was attempting to turn around in the travel lanes, having spun out on the wet roads and ending up facing backwards.  No apparent damage but we were very happy to park the car 15 minutes later and let someone else do the driving.

Sitting here in the gate, we started getting texts from Terry and Jill.  Their connecting flight was delayed, causing them to miss the transatlantic flight.  After some time and wrangling with a ticketing agent, they booked a flight to arrive early Friday morning in Dublin, about a day later than scheduled.

And we appear to have the opposite problem.  I just got a text that our flight was delayed, not because anything was wrong, but because the flight time will be shorter than expected and they are not allowed to arrive early in Dublin.  So we leave here a half hour later and arrive at the scheduled time.

Yeah, I know, first-world problems, but I am always glad to get the air travel over with.