Chicago. IL - August 11

I am going to have to break this trip report down into several posts just to get through it.  I will post about

Getting there
Getting Around
Millennium Park
Billy Goat Tavern
Architecture
The Pier

But first, I have to give a big shout out and thank you to my over the phone travel guide Bill Greaves and also Klem from online.  I work with Bill's sister and when I mentioned the trip, she volunteered her brother to help us figure out what to do in town.  Bill gave us plenty of great ideas to choose from and even called us on our trip to make sure we were doing OK.

From 88 to Zero in 60 Seconds

As mentioned in a previous post, we had looked at the flight status as recently as Friday morning and there were still 88 unsold seats on our preferred flight.  Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, we discovered that there were no seats available for sale.  My husband's theory about the airline protecting seats for stranded passengers was later proven to be true.  But, no knowing this yet, we decided to head tot he Airport early Saturday morning to try our luck.   We left the house at 430:AM for our one hour drive.  Our travel bags were already packed and ready to go so all we had to do was hop up and get out of the house.

I had told the kids to pack light since we would have to carry around anything we brought.  They took my admonition to heart.  Big Boy stuffed a set of ear buds, a couple of chargers, a PSP and some games into a fanny pack.  Lil' Bit would have stuck to a fanny pack but we didn't have any left.  She chose a tiny backpack.  She also only had a headset and PSP.

I had a fanny pack, a cooler with our breakfast of donuts and our granola bars snacks.  I also had a small bag with two towels, a bathing suit for each child and a Sudoku puzzle book.  I brought some candy for the plane but never dipped into it.  next time, a little less candy should do.

What we did not bring was the kindles.  I had bought the kids Kindle Fires just for traveling.  The Kindle Fire is an ereader but also has games such as the ever popular Angry Birds and even holds a few movies.  If I had known that they were not going to take the Kindles, I would have grabbed one, loaded a movie or two on it and used it myself.  I have a couple of movies on my smart phone but if I use it for movies or games on the plane, it won't last me through the day while traveling. (even without using it on the plane, it doesn't last).  And, we can't have me running all over the country without a phone, can we.  As soon as I get a few dollars in my pocket I plan on buying a rechargeable phone charger to get me through these long days.  I use the cell phone extensively to look up all sorts of thing when we travel.  My battery usually reaches critical stage way too early for my comfort.

We decided to take a stroller , mostly to pile all of our stuff onto but also in case Lil' Bit's legs didn't hold out.  The stroller came in very handy on both counts.

We got to the airport about 90 minutes before our flight.  If you remember from my "flying standby" post  I don't have to beat every standby passenger to the airport, only the other's in my 'group' (spouses and family).  I figured that the 88 seats were there or were not and the extra half hour would not be what made the difference.

We breezed through security and got to the gate.  We received our boarding passes and it was only after we got settled that we learned that the plane, which holds 127 passengers, had 137 people checked in but....  at least 20 people got held up in a bottle neck in security and didn't make it to the gate.  There were ten empty seats left on the plane.  Oh, and all those other people filling the formerly empty 88 seats... they were stranded passengers from the previous days storms, as we had predicted.

and so... we were off