Waiting again ....

Well, I made it to Philadelphia (finally), and am waiting for a session to start, so I thought I'd write a bit.

Wasn't yesterday a fun travel day ....

I had trouble sleeping the night before (as usual before I travel), but waking up wasn't too bad considering my flight didn't leave Indy until 1:00, meaning I didn't have to leave my house until 9:00 or so. I was flying American with tickets secured via Priceline, so I was a bit worried about the process, but had no difficulties. I checked in in Indy with a swipe of one of my credit cards, then went to wait for my plane.

Waiting became the mantra of the day ....

The American flight coming into Indy was late and pulled up at the gate about the time it was supposed to be leaving. This was making most people a little anxious considering most Indy to O'hare flights are in order to make connections. However, the flight time mysteriously changed from 1:06 to :34, and we pulled into O'hare almost right on time.

Once on the ground in Chicago, I made my way to my assigned gate, figuring I'd find where it was before I grabbed some food. After making my way to another concourse, I found that my flight gate had been moved to about one gate down from where I had originally deplaned ... oh goodie. I also saw that my flight had been delayed from 4:13 to 5:00 because of the weather inbound to Philadelphia. I figured :45 wasn't too bad, so I waited, watching Dodgeball on my portable media device.

In retrospect, :45 wasn't too bad at all. Once we boarded the plane, the pilot informed us that inbound weather was still a problem, so we would be sitting on the tarmac until at least the top of the hour (45 min or so). I really didn't like the emphasis on at least, but knew there was nothing that could be done. At the top of the hour, the pilot came on saying that the Philadelphia airport (along with several other east coast airports) had been closed due to inbound weather, and that another status report would come in an hour. Grumbling ensued, but what could we do?

At 7:00, the next status report came ... Philadelphia was open, but there was a backlog of traffic ... it would be another 1:30 before we would be off the ground. The grumbling was more pronounced, but again, what could we do?

As 8:30 rolled around (remember, flight was originally supposed to leave at 4:13), the pilot informed us that we were still scheduled for our same departure time and that we would begin taxiing in a few minutes, so passengers should make their last few phone calls and sit down. This suggestion was met with ... no response. People still kept milling around the cabin. A few minutes later, the captain came on reminding us that we could not move at all while people were standing. Again, no response ... people still milling. Finally a flight attendant came on and announced that if people didn't sit down we would miss our flight window and would be stuck on the ground for at least another hour. Almost in slow motion, the last few stragglers finally took their seats.

The plane touched down in Philadelphia at about 11:15 PM local time, so I met Cthemaven at the baggage claim, collected my luggage, and then we hopped on the train to downtown. I checked into my hotel at about 12:15 ... finally a chance to rest after a long, strenuous day of sitting.