Entry: Stuck at the airport (part 2)

If you didn't read part 1 of this exciting story of my return to Charleston, please read below. Otherwise, enjoy the second installment! :)

Yeah....so my flight finally left Portland ~1am this morning. The delay was longer than the actual flight was.

I got to Chicago and, lo and behold, the flight was actually arriving on time! Woohoo!! After my 2 hour layover, that was good news.

Well, the plane lands when it's supposed to. However, someone dorks something up and they realize that they are unable to open the door to the baggage area of the aircraft. So, they had to bring a crew in to literally remove the back wall of the passenger cabin so that they could access the luggage area from the inside. Well...that was an extra 30 minutes right there.

We are finally allowed to board the plane. I take my seat (next to a guy whom I can only describe as "young and angry"). I get my stuff situated and then I tilt my head back and gently drift off to sleep. I wake up, maybe 25 minutes later to find that we haven't moved an inch. I was like....WTF??? The captain gets on the horn and says something to the effect of: "We're waiting for our turn to take off. This is going to take forever. This is O'Hare....this is what happens here. Thank you very much for your patience." (assuming, of course, that we actually had any). So, we finally start taxiing out and went about half a mile before the aircraft stops again and the engines are shut down. The captain comes back on: "Sorry again folks. We're going to be here a while waiting for our turn. We've killed the engines so that we can save fuel while we're in line.". He wasn't kidding either. There were planes that had to give up their spots in line so that they could go back to the terminal and refuel!! That place was absolutely nuts. I not only saw lines of planes....I saw lines of lines of planes! It was like a 2-dimensional line of planes waiting to take off!

Long story short (err....shortER), we ended up taking off in Chicago about 15 minutes after we were scheduled to land in Charleston. Sonofa....

Anyway, I'm home now. I'm unpacked, fed, and just waiting for the sandman to take me away.

Details of my trip to follow.