To Fly or To Drive, This is the Question

 We were going to fly out to Ohio in May for my sister’s birthday.

When back pain entered the picture, our plans were changed, we cancelled our flight, we rebooked later on and found ourselves headed to the airport in August.

Tucker was excited since he’d never flown in a commercial jet. Renae loved flying when she flew last year in September and was happy to fly again. I hadn’t flown since R was under two. Meaning I hadn’t flown since the added security to our airports.

Everything went smoothly for the first half of our journey.

We arrived at the airport, got unloaded and checked in and said good-bye to our Dad/Husband since he couldn’t be gone and needed to stay home and do jobs and work and things like that, plus take care of all the pets. And water the flowerpots.

We got smoothly through security, put our shoes back on, gathered our stuff from the belt and trekked back to our gate.

We took seats to wait for our boarding call and presently another passenger sat down across from us. She pulled out her phone and made a call and we were amused when we heard her say, “This is a tiny airport! They only have one security check-in running and no coffeeshop!” It made me curious as to where she was from and where she was going.  I rather liked our little airport, but it would certainly look different if you were used to big cities and loved big city life. And, funny thing, according to me and my family, we were in the city!

 We were flying Southwest and they have general seating.

When it was our boarding group and position, we walked down the jetway and onto a fairly full plane. Our flight had come from Dallas and was continuing on to Chicago, so there were quite a few passengers that had stayed on the plane.

That meant a lot of already full seats and the unavailability of three seats together. It also meant that all the window seats were full and a lot of the empty seats were center seats. Oh joy!

We ended up going clear back to the back of the plane and found two empty center seats and one empty aisle seat across from them. So we shuffled over people and into seats. Tucker took the aisle seat across from the row I was in. In a few minutes, the man beside me asked Tucker if he wanted to trade seats with him, so he could sit beside his mom. It was very thoughtful of him.

Tucker had really been hoping to get a window seat, but I was glad to end up getting to at least sit with him and Renae was directly behind us. We looked out the windows as best we could, had a drink from the in-flight beverage service and crunched down the offered pretzels and peanuts.

We arrived in Chicago to sunny skies, on time, and plenty of time to grab something to eat and figure out what gate we would be departing from. Turned out our departure was going to be from the very gate we arrived at. Very easy!

We walked on the moving sidewalks and checked out a little bit of the airport and then headed back to our gate. I noticed it was starting to look fairly stormy.

The skies kept turning darker and the storms moved in and the rain started to pour.

That’s when the rest of our trip started down a different track flightpath.

 

Pretty soon they announced that our flight was going to be delayed a couple of hours. The plane taking us to Ohio was en route to Chicago from Phoenix and it got diverted to St. Louis because of the weather in Chicago.

Therefore we couldn’t go on to Ohio without our plane.

So, ok, we had a couple of extra hours to wait. Not too bad, really. It’s always interesting to watch people. We walked on the moving sidewalks. We ventured further into the airport and found a toy store/gift shop. There were lots of cool toys, so we had fun browsing. We each picked out three things to pretend buy. We picked out “gifts” and pretend gave them to each other. We found some Christmas gift ideas!

Then, we found a Ben & Jerrys!!! So, we shared some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

Yummy. yummyyummyyummyyummyyummyyummyyummy

We wandered back to our gate and settled down to wait. Lots of flights had been delayed because of the weather, so everything was pretty full with lots of people just sitting and waiting and lots of people coming and going and hurrying through.

The chairs were full, so we sat down on a ledge by the moving sidewalk and watched people and listened to them make announcements about our flight and lots of other flights. The kiddos went every so often and made a couple of rounds on the moving sidewalk.

Then, our flight got moved down a couple of gates, so we moved to that gate. Tucker found an empty chair for me and I was glad to sit in it, instead of on the floor.

Our plane arrived, on time, according to the delayed time, its present passengers disembarked and all the people wanting to go to Ohio started boarding.

Our turn came and we boarded the plane, with Tucker eagerly hoping for a window seat this time. And this time he was able to get one! We were all able to sit in the same row and we were happy. {Especially later on!}

Everything seemed to be going pretty good, just a couple hours later than planned.

We went through all the preflight instructions, buckled up, and looked out the window and talked as we taxied out to get in the lineup to take off.

And then we sat on the runway. And sat. And sat.

And sat some more.

Lots of flights had been delayed and changed because of the weather, so everything was in a bit of a snarl.

Finally, our pilot came on and told us we were going to have to head back to the gate for more fuel. There were several groans, but we all wanted to have enough fuel to make it to our destination. We started to taxi back and as we were doing this, the crew reported to us that there weren’t any open gates at the moment, so we’d have to wait on that as well.

While we were waiting on the gate, it started getting rainy again. Pretty soon they announced to us that once again all flights had been grounded. This wasn’t the best news ever and not really what we were wanting to hear.

The weather soon cleared and we could see planes taking off again.

We got an open gate and were waiting for the fuel truck, when here came another announcement! Our pilot and co-pilot’s time was up and they were now illegal to fly and we were going to have to wait on another crew, who were on a flight fifteen minutes out.

By this time, it was starting to get funny. What else could one do but laugh?

At this point, they announced that anyone wanting to get off the plane or needing to, could do so, and to leave your name with the attendants and re-board in fifteen minutes. Quite a few people headed back into the airport. We really didn’t have any reason we needed to, so we stayed put. I figured the more people that got off and had to get back on, the longer it was going to take!

The fuel truck got us fueled. The new flight crew arrived. The exited passengers straggled back with sandwiches and such and settled back into seats. We got set once again to taxi out and take our place in line for take-off.

In line again, our pilot gave us a few updates about our position in line and wait time. It was going to be about another twenty minutes till our turn to take off.

After four hours of sitting on the plane, we finally took to the skies on our one hour flight from Chicago to Ohio! We could’ve been in California by that time.

What to do on a plane for four hours of waiting?

 

Well, listen to the announcements and things that keep happening and changing!

Text your family updates.

Think about the chance that you could be in Chicago overnight. 🙁

Read the book, stuck in your carry-on.

Look through the Skymall magazine tucked in the seat pocket back and each choose one thing on each page that you would purchase.

Play “Twenty Questions”. Or as we call it, “I’m Thinking of Somebody”.

Fill out the activity books the stewardess brought the kids.

Watch the cute two-year old walking in the aisle.

Be glad that we were all seated together.

Catch a glimpse of the plane painted up like Shamu, the killer whale.

End up in line to take off behind it and get to see it take off out of our window! Renae was thrilled.

Cheer with everyone when it was finally our turn and our plane took off!

Listen to my daughter proclaim, “I love flying!” as we finally took off. 🙂

From the time we left home to drive to the airport in Kansas till we arrived at my parent’s house in Ohio, we could’ve driven from Kansas to Ohio!

To fly or to drive, that is the question!!!

 

But we made memories, we saw Shamu, and we learned some patience!

We also got to fly at night, another new experience for both kiddos. It was getting dark as we winged away from Chicago and flew over the lake and city. All the lights were really pretty and Renae was fascinated to get a close up view of the blinking light on the wing of our plane. A whole different viewpoint than standing on the ground, gazing at the blinking light on a plane in the sky!

Food from Wendys! We finally made it to Columbus!

Thanks to Renae and her Ipod for all the pictures!

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