Travel Follies

Well, I was off to Bloomington, IL today for a meeting at 1:00. No problem, fly into Chicago around 9 and then onto Bloomington with an hour or so to spare. Mother Nature had a different plan--after sitting on the tarmac in Columbus for 90 minutes, I arrived at O'Hare only to find my flight to Bloomington canceled -- shockingly so was the United flight my co-worker was to be on--so we head down to Hertz and low and behold they have a car, we have three hours which is plenty of time to drive to Bloomington. OK, we are on our way again. Meeting goes off without a hitch but that is where the adventure begins. Back at the Bloomington airport, we turn in the rental only to find the 6 o'clock flight back to Chicago delayed until at least 9pm. They found a flight through ATL for my co-worker but I just want to get back to Chi-town to meet Kim and our Chi-town friends for the weekend. While drowning my travel wows in Bud Light at the one and only bar in this small airport, I overhear mention of the "peoria charter" -- hmm...will this get me back to Chicago??? -- I head back to the US Airways counter and ask about this bus...leaves in an hour from ISU campus and makes two stops....I hop in a taxi and head to campus, catch the bus and off to Chicago. About an hour into my trip, I get a call from Orbitz, the flight from Bloomington to Chicago was canceled -- I was never so happy to be on the bus. Which leads me to this sidenote: It was a charter bus just like the ones we used to take to Florida in college for our Spring Training trip. The same type of bus taken by the Bluffton baseball team and many many other collegiate teams traveling to Florida for Spring Training tournaments. The tragic accident could have happened to any of these teams and it is one of those moments that make you truly cherish everything in your life past and present. One of those moments that helps us put our own experiences and challenges at hand into perspective....and all of sudden it makes worrying about getting back to Chicago on time seem irrelevant. It will make this weekend with friends just hanging out that much more special................and by the way, after the bus dropped us off at the airport I safely arrived at The Knickerbocker around 10pm ready for some room service.