Why I am in Chicago Right Now

So, since I don't really want to keep telling this story over and over again, I figured I'd hit up my last few friends who are readers of this insanity I call a blog and just do a post about it. Some of you may have known I had a trip out to Oregon planned for last weekend. It was going to be a whirlwind adventure in which one of my best friends drove down to Chicago, we were to jump a plane Friday and hop, skip, jump around the country (Chicago to Minneapolis to Seattle to Redmond, OR) until we landed at the feet of a third very close friend in Bend Oregon. There we would hide indoors, meet her new baby (3 months oldish) and celebrate the Solstice together such as we haven't been able to do in over 3 years. Then it was back on a plane Monday night to do the reverse trip with a redeye flight (I've never done one before!) that landed us back in Chicagoland Tuesday morning, into the car we would pour ourselves with gallons of coffee to get us back to the homeland of Madison, WI for some family Christmas time. A bus back to Chicago on Friday would of wrapped up the adventure. Get all that? Now here is what actually happened.

Tim (friend and travel companion) gets into Chicago way earlier than I expected Thursday night as he left responsibly early to beat the incoming storm. I, however, being buried in last minute work (I told them this would happen!) got out late and he actually beat me to my door. This was okay as he had a nice warm car and good coffee to keep him occupied while I raced from the train to meet him. We hung out, I got to show him my favorite local bar and second home and we went to sleep at a relatively decent time (Oneish?) to prepare for the next day.

Friday: Up by 8 we were out the door by 9. We were flying out of Midway so we did the Brown line to downtown and the jumped on the Orange line. Got to Midway around 10:30 which was just what we wanted for our noon flight. As we walked into the hustle bustle of the weekend before Christmas Tim looks at the flight arrivals and departures screen and says "Wait, Cancelled?" To which I, in all my splendid wisdom reply, "Huh?" "Flight 1287 says cancelled, that's our flight to Minneapolis" How the hell he knows our flight number has bogged down my distractable mind more than the end result of the flight being cancelled. "Lets just get in line and we can figure it out."

What feels like an hour later we get to the front of the line and begin the descent into hell that comes with holiday travel and dealing with airlines. I could give you a long, drawn out play by play of our conversation with the man behind the curtain, but that seems exhausting so I will try and sum it up instead.

Our original flight to Minneapolis was cancelled due to weather (in Chicago apparently). The guy behind the counter could find no other flights that would get us to Seattle in time to catch our connecting flight to Redmond. In fact, he could find absolutely no flights into Redmond for the rest of the day Friday. None on Saturday. None on Sunday. Since we were to fly home on Monday this basically means we are fucked. The closest he can get us is Portland. What the hell we think, we can jump a bus or rent a car. Let's go for it.

So we take the Portland option - which by the way will route us first through Detroit, and then to Minneapolis and then into Portland at 11:30 at night - and head towards our gate. But as we wait we overhear the guy with the laptop next to us talk about how Detroit is getting worse and worse. We strike up a conversation and learn that Milwaukee is closed (which has nothing to do with this story but gives you an idea of how crappy the weather was in case you know, you live in Australia and it is summer) and Detroit's wait time is getting longer and longer. As we examine our boarding passes we see that we have exactly half an hour in Minneapolis to catch our connecting flight to Portland or we are stuck in the twin cities. I did not pay $600 to hand out in the land of 10,000 lakes all weekend. Plus we talk to our friend in Oregon and learn that the pass through the mountains that we would have to take to get from Portland to Bend is pretty much shut down.

So here we are in Chicago with no way to fly to Redmond and no way to drive to Bend. What the hell are we supposed to do.

What we did was spend forever on hold with Travelocity to see if we could get our money back if we cancelled. After forever the woman said yes - minus a minuscule service fee. And after heart wrenching deliberation and some honesty that trying to get from Portland to Bend just wasn't safe we said yes.

So I spent the past weekend in Chicago where it has been negative 4 degrees as a high (before wind chill of course). I spent Solstice curled up on my couch wearing about 5 layers. And I am back at work on this chilly wintry morning explaining to my coworkers why I am not on vacation.

So that's the story. I wish all of you better luck with your holiday travel plans. And I am going to head back to work now. Cheers.