KD4IML - I’m Miguel Lombana

So I had a business trip to corporate and I had a feeling that it was just going to be one of “those” trips. Woke up early, got everything done at home, packed, prepped and did as the FAA recommends, got to the airport 2 hours early. The first sign of trouble, I came into the wrong terminal, needed to be in T4 but I showed up in T3, no worries, back on the bus, into the building, total time lost 15 minutes.

I entered the terminal on the West side, the gate that I needed is on the East, so after the 15 minutes of TSA rhetoric I started walking, and walking, and walking and wouldn’t you know it, my gate was at the very end of the concourse so I put in my mile for the day!

I had just over an hour to wait to board so I sat down in what I thought was a full service restaurant, they had a waitress and a menu, the menu consisted of 2 items, both sandwiches, I chose the Turkey and Cheese rather than the Ham and Cheese, add a diet Coke, total before tip 15.36!

Walked over the waiting area and watched the clock tick to the magic 30 minutes before departure and instead of the, Ladies and Gentlemen let’s get ready to rumble it was, due to an air traffic stop in the Chicago area, we’re not going anywhere, sit back, relax and we’ll let you know more once we know what’s going on. So before I cried (Bravo Sierra) on this, I pulled out the laptop and queried the FAA website and sure enough, the message below was on the screen, so atleast they were honest.

Bottom line, I got to Chicago, 4 hours late and still had to drive 30 miles to the part of town I would be meeting in all week, but no sooner than I left the airport I saw my personal MECCA, there on the right was a White Castle, so 4 Cheese sliders, a box of fries and a diet Coke made the next 30 miles just fly by!

BTW, if you ever want to know the latest status for an airport and you’re stuck in a terminal with no information, go here: http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp you’ll get a map and you can click on the field of your choice to see what’s holding you up.