The morning of the day we left Molokai, I went back to Popahaku Beach, partly to linger, partly to hold onto the memories.
And, of course, I couldn't leave without doing some stomp art in the sand.
Our flights home took us via Chicago O'Hare, where it was snowing when we landed. It was a wet snow, and it didn't seem all THAT serious, but I guess it was. When we landed, we had a very smooth landing, but the plane seemed to slide sideways a bit. And once we landed, we had to join a queue just to get to our gate. Meanwhile, we got to watch the snow-removal teams of vehicles at work. I counted 12 of them in a row, ploughing and blowing the snow from the taxi strips.
Because of weather issues and mechanical issues with a plane ahead of us, we waited on the tarmac for nearly two hours before we could disembark. If our other plane was on time, we had 10 minutes to get to it. But the minute we got off the plane we checked the board and saw that our next flight (direct from Chicago to London, Ontario) was delayed an hour, so we relaxed a bit and found our way to the proper gate.
It turned out that about every 15 - 20 minutes, the flight to London was delayed again, just a bit more, "awaiting inbound aircraft" which, it turned out, had never left London to get to Chicago.
During the wait, this sign really tickled me:
The rescheduled departure time was 4:15 CST; the flight was due to arrive in London at 4:24 EST (which is 3:24 CST). And the flight was expected to take an hour and 14 minutes. I assumed that meant we'd be traveling faster than the speed of light.
That flight was eventually cancelled. So we rescheduled for the later flight. Then 20 minutes before it was due to depart, it too was cancelled. So we tried to rebook. It turned out there was no way to get out of Chicago that night to London. Furthermore, every conceivable way of doing it the next day was completely booked up. We were going to have to spend two nights in Chicago.
So I called a number provided by the airline, and they automagically booked us into the Intercontinental Hotel at O'Hare for about $80/night. Ms. Eclectic and I looked at each other and agreed; I pronounced, "hurt me some more." The rack rate of the room we had was $500, and the currently listed internet rate is about $170/night.
We relaxed. We drank. We ate. And we enjoyed ourselves in our corner room with a funky bathroom:
It sort of reminded us of the Old Dominion Hotel in the lower old village in Quebec City.
Finally, after two nights, we boarded a flight from Chicago to Toronto, were pleasantly surprised to see our checked bags were with us, and from Toronto flew home.
Overall, it was a pleasant, relaxing holiday, even with the flight cancellations in Chicago.
Aloha!