Since our first Grandchild was born on 20th December 2013 we have been longing for our trip to see him. At last, the day dawned and we set off on our much anticipated journey to Indianapolis via Chicago. I think the writing was on the wall as soon as we found that we were setting off an hour late due to faulty air conditioning, clearly our connecting flight was not going to happen. To pass the time I watched The Butler, About Time and Man of Steel all very enjoyable in their own ways. When we came to land we collected our bags and got moved to First class in order to get off as quickly as possible, as we disembarked there were new boarding cards for all of us that had been rebooked onto later flights, it was very efficient and a good job as it took a long time to get through passport control anyway. Our new flight was for 8pm so we ate and relaxed and contacted Alexander. They changed the gates several times from one side of the terminal to another but finally our flight was actually cancelled due to the snow and we had to go back outside security to rebook and see what arrangements could be made. They were very organised and efficient very used to snow cancellations being Chicago, we were booked into a hotel room and on a new flight in the morning. There were buses to all the regularly used hotels so we just had to wait for the Crowne Plaza Hotel bus which was of course the longest time in coming, we saw three or four buses from all the other hotels whilst waiting for ours. My feet got cold as my boots were in hold luggage so although I had hat, gloves and fake fur coat to keep the rest of me toasty warm I only had court shoes on and the floor was mighty cold. There was not much room for ceremony by the time the mini bus arrived, we had already worked out that not all of us were going to get on that small bus and as we had been there one of the first and there was not an orderly queue I did not mind barging my way on and sitting at the front of the bus so I could then barge my way off so we were at the front of the checking in queue in the actual hotel barging seemed a good use of hand luggage by then. We were so tired that I think the delay was fortuitous, we will get a good nights sleep and fly and drive tomorrow. We got to our hotel at about 8pm which was 1am on our body clocks, the airport had given us emergency supplies of toothbrushes, toothpaste etc thank goodness. We crashed out the second our heads hit the pillows but because of the time difference had no problem getting up early to be at the front of the bus queue back to O'Hare. We checked in again and knew our way around the terminal already, we had breakfast then headed to our gate on the other side of the terminal, then back to where we started when the gate changed again when the flight was delayed. We began to think we would never get there, and burst into hysterical laughter when it turned out to be a 45 minute flight! We began to feel like we were Tom Hanks living in the Terminal but eventually we boarded and flew to Indianapolis, found our bags had flown on the flight yesterday that was cancelled for us people and everyone's bags were all lined up in the baggage hall. I thought that bags didn't fly without people since 9/11 for securities sake but apparently not! We collected the hire car and headed off for Fishers. Finally after so much travel and what seemed like a week but was only two days we pulled up to the Ogden's house. Still wearing the inappropriate for snow court shoes I got out of the car and fell straight in a snow drift, it was an undignified but a very graceful fall and made everyone laugh as we had made it to our destination at last.
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| O'Hare Chicago..... |
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| ......still festive Airport building. |
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| Constant battle to keep airport open. |
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| Astonishingly our bags travelled without us and were ..... |
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| ...all lined up in the baggage hall! |
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| Never seen that before! |
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| At last..... |
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| ....first glimpse of Alexander.... |
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| .....and Kelly.... |
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| .....at the Ogden's beautiful home. |
