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January 15, 2007
Standby (Discourse Chronicle)
[Whenever winter break comes upon me as a reminder that I more or less lived through another fall semester, I fly home, which may be more expensive than driving back to Wisconsin. However, flying allows me to avoid other drivers on the road (who become much more dangerous in winter) and I like to think it saves some wear and tear on my 2000 Monte Carlo SS. I typically fly out of College Station to Dallas and then on to Minneapolis, MN before catching a ground transport taking me to Eau Claire, WI where my parents pick me up and drive us home to Chippewa Falls, WI. I repeat this routine backwards when I am ready to return to College Station. However, nothing proved routine on my return trip.
Returning to College Station took 20 hours yesterday starting at 4am and consisted of experiencing flight cancellations, rerouting, and delays (due to ice storms in Dallas); navigating an unfamiliar O'Hare airport; and catching the last ground shuttle for the night from Houston to College Station. I must say that the airport staff at O'Hare is extremely rude and completely unavailable for answering questions about finding terminals when switching airlines. Meanwhile, I caught that final ground shuttle to College Station without a reservation thanks to people not showing up due to flights being cancelled, but I roasted along with other passengers because someone turned up the heater and opened the back vents. It took us two and a half hours to figure out how to close those vents because the shuttle provided door-to-door service.
As many of us know about me, I fly regularly a few times a year to visit friends and family in Wisconsin at Christmas time, but also for conferences in the spring. I never experienced so much trouble for a routine trip. I know that I relate more with Odysseus and his difficulty returning to Ithaca in Homer's Odyssey after this experience. BK]
Posted by kuechebj at January 15, 2007 11:42 PM
Comments
All I know is if I did not look at maps provided by two empty customer service booths, then I would have missed my connecting flight to Houston, delayed or not. Giving directions is not that hard and only takes a few seconds.
Posted by: Bobby Kuechenmeister at January 17, 2007 07:11 PM
O'Hare's not THAT bad... I just went through there, too. Of course, that's my normal route, so maybe I'm just used to it.
Posted by: Signe. at January 17, 2007 06:32 PM