An unfortunate gathering... and events

I'm writing to you from a hotel room in Illinois, and happy to have made it here. Our flight out of Denver was supposed to leave at 12:41pm yesterday. When we were still sitting at the gate at 1:01pm, we knew something had to be wrong. They already shut the cabin door, so what were we waiting for? A voice came over the speaker telling us that the altimeter was broken, and they had called a mechanic. This piece of machinery tells the pilot the distance to the ground--pretty important thing to have working. So yes, I'll wait for it to be fixed, thank you.

Not too much longer, we were ship shape and ready to go to the runway. So we did, and waited... and waited, and waited (no pun intended, you'll see). Now, another voice came on to tell us that we were headed back to the gate, as the person who signs off on the flight after recording the weight (used in determining take-off speed and timing, etc.) had gone home for the day without communicating this important piece of data. Also, we had burned through all of our taxing fuel and some of the in-flight fuel. He joked that we should go re-fuel, unless we wanted to land in Oakland instead of San Francisco. Um, neither, actually... we're headed to Chicago!?!? Everyone looked around, a bit more worried at this point. After hearing us chatter, rather than snicker at his "joke", he came back on to say, "Oh, apparently you're headed to Chicago... that would explain why you didn't laugh at my Oakland joke, ha ha!" (No one laughed). He continued, "Don't worry, I'm not the pilot! We'll be getting out of here soon, folks." [Insert applause, here.]

So after sitting on the ground in Denver for 2+ hours more than we anticipated, we finally took off and headed to the Windy City.

As we landed in Chicago, we sat on the Tarmac for 20 minutes before moving to the gate. Side note: this flight was making a connection in Chicago for Amsterdam, those people are panicked at this point. So we make it to the gate, and a lady comes on to tell us the next nugget of informaiton. She starts off by saying, "This flight is cursed..." Uh, great. She said that the jetway is broken, and for safety reasons, they've called in a mechanic to get it fixed. Gee, you think? Also, remember those folks heading to Amsterdam? I hope they have large bladders, because the flight is (thankfully) waiting for them at the gate, and I don't think they'll have time to pass go, let alone stop at the restroom. She asked that anyone with a little more time wait to de-board and let those who are making a connection get off first. Done. I got farther in my book, goofed around with my hubby more, and was happier for it.

So, the plane finally emptied, and we reached our destination. But wait...

John and I picked up our rental car, loaded the luggage, and were headed down I-88 in Chicago. There is construction for the length of the highway (think T-Rex in Denver) and no place to pull off, should you need to. Which we did. As we sped down the interstate, John pointed out that the hood of the car was bouncing. Excuse me? Bouncing? Yes, bouncing. It was not latched, and we're going about 70mph. My mind went to the scene in Tommy Boy when their hood flips up on the highway... So of course I started quoting that for John. What else?

We finally found our exit, pulled into a parking lot, and John pushed the hood down until it clicked. Yikes. He called the car rental place to let them know about what happened. While we didn't get hurt, we could have if it had flipped up on us while going down the highway. He's rented from them several times and never had it happen, he just wanted to let them know about it. Good thing he did, because they comped us a day's rental. Yea! One point in the positive column!!

More to come...