LG our house sitter was kind enough to offer me a ride to the airport. The street have been plowed at this point, squeezed everything into the civic and was dropped off around 4am. The adventure begins. UA has about 3 employees to deal with about a crowd of 100 people (and growing). There were only 20 people ahead of me in line but it took about 1.5 hours to get to the front of the line only to be told that my flight is delayed (crew availability). I'll definitely need every minute of my 3 hour layover in ORD, all that marathon training will sure pay off.
After being yelled at by UA staff and bonding with the rest of the delayed/cancelled folks I was able to check in and assuming the flight took off on time, 1 hour layover in ORD. Some of the other folks in line were not so lucky, one fellow who had been rescheduled from friday was told to fork over $7000!!!!!! in order to complete a reservation he had confirmed in hand (cou'dn't stick around to see this one through). A few people heading to Whistler on a scientific conference (with skis) managed to get out as well.
After the check-in chaos everything seemed like smooth sailing. I was 'randomly' selected for extra screening, my yogurt drink was confiscated but the red dust on my hiking boots reminded my TSA checker of her time in Flagstaff. Turns out that we had hiked some of the same places (Havasu Canyon for one).
Finally on the plane, bonded with a compatriot who was sitting next to me, also headed to YVR. Plane made up time on the way to ORD, everyone on board had a tight connection. Landed 30 minutes ahead of schedule so plenty of time to make connection.
Walked with one of the pilots from T1 to T3, got some good tips on where the shortest security line in ORD are and managed to get my boarding pass with time to spare.
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