Here I am.  My FIRST flight to Seattle
for our son's wedding.  This was to be
   an outdoor ceremony set against the Cascade Mountains.  

I had been looking forward to this trip for weeks and
nothing, absolutely NOTHING, was going to spoil it !
Yeah, Right.
Who said, "What can go wrong will?  Was that the
Peter Principle? "  Well, I must have known
that guy personally in another life, because,
as usual, nothing went exactly as I had planned......

On To Seattle

Chapter 1

We left Mishawaka, Indiana around 1 p.m. on Thursday, August 3rd in hopes of missing most of the madhouse traffic on I94 near Chicago.  We arrived in the "Windy City" about 4 p.m. and drove the whole length of Lake Shore Drive, and around town doing the "tourist" stuff to kill time as our flight out of Midway was not until 8:15 p.m.

Arriving at the airport a little before 5 we thought we would beat the crowd and check in early, I stand in line for about 30 minutes.  I am quickly told
that I cannot check in until a little after 6 p.m. So much for being the early ones !

We decided that since there will be no meals on the plane we should get a bite to eat now.  As we entered the "cafe", I noticed there is not  a grand choice of foods, but it will hold off  starvation.  After eating, I join the throng of people in line to get checked in and we proceeded through security.

This being my first flight and with all the commotion going on, I had completely forgotten I was traveling with the bionic man.  Ray recently had a hip replacement and he has a bolt for an elbow (that is a story in itself). As he went through the security metal detector, and all the alarms went off,  it made us sound like the "Mishawaka Militants" !!!  Ray got thoroughly scanned for hidden weapons or whatever, we were told to wait at Boarding Gate C3.

It was 8 p.m.,  just a few minutes before the flight is to take off, when I started to wonder why weren't we getting on the plane?  The message
board at Gate C3 told the story - the flight was delayed -  I checked
to see how late it would be - "About an hour or so" was the answer.
We sat and watched planes come and go, getting more and more nervous.

Three hours later, the intercom announced "ATA flight number 156 to Seattle is CANCELED !"    Oh no !    Now what ? Remember, "Peter Principle" ???

I forgot to bring son Scott's phone number,  as well as my own kids phone numbers.  I couldn't remember any of those numbers if I had to, because, we have those phones for lazy idiots where you press memory and one number and the phone does all the work !

I stood at the desk and eavesdropped on all the other people that were screaming at the poor girl behind the desk.  She lost her composure and yelled back that she did not know what was going to happen. (And to be honest, I don't think at that moment she cared)  We were told we would have to leave the secured area since we weren't going anywhere.  We then have an interesting time trying to retrieve our luggage from the airlines.

At 12:30 in the morning,  Ray said, "Forget it, let's go home!"  I said, "No Way, we are going to go to that wedding, even if we don't arrive until Saturday Morning".  Another announcement... all passengers on the canceled flight to Seattle were to report to the ATA counter.   I stood back for the stampede to settle down then got in line.  I was the last one in line and things were moving as quickly as one person could write. Wow, we were down to three little old ladies flying together and a man!  Oh Lord, he  wanted to purchase tickets to Seattle !!  He said he had been waiting in 5
different lines and he wants his tickets.  The poor girl was exhausted and not in any mood to mess with him. "Sir, I am not SELLING tickets, I am writing vouchers for the canceled passengers that HAVE tickets".  He got angry and tried to argue with her.  She stated she is closing.  I jumped up to the counter and shoved my tickets at her and begged, "Please, don't close until you do mine!"  She said she would take care of my vouchers but then she was closed.  The 'gentleman' looked at me and said, "Lady, I was here first, you wait your turn".  I simply looked him in the eye and said, "Sorry, sir, but  I have tickets and you don't".

We received our vouchers....one for taxi fare to downtown Chicago, one for Quality Inn, one for a meal (if you had time to eat) and one for return taxi to Midway the next morning.  It was 1:30 a.m. when we arrived at the hotel.  We had to be back at Midway by 7 a.m.  Needless to say,
we did not get much sleep.
 
 
To be continued......