San Antonio, Texas

Tuesday, September 12, 2006 12:00 Noon EDT

I’m off to San Antonio today, via Chicago. It’s been one of those “hurry up and wait” days.

I was up until 2 AM working. Then woke up around 6:30 AM. I took care of some more work, and then packed up and headed to BWI.

The first challenge was the traffic jam on the beltway. A tractor-trailer overturned shortly after the Connecticut Avenue exit. That backed traffic all the way up 270 to Montgomery Avenue. I gambled, hoping I would be able to hop on the beltway at Connecticut, and the bypass the accident shortly thereafter. It worked. I spent about 10 minutes in heavy traffic, and then the rest of the ride to BWI was smooth sailing.

At the airport, I checked in and found out the first leg of my flight to Chicago was canceled. Instead of flying out at 1 PM, I have to wait for the next flight which is due to depart close to 3 PM. That means I’ll get to San Antonio about 3 hours later than expected.

One minor benefit is I received an upgrade to Economy Plus for the Chicago-San Antonio leg of the trip.

The airport is surprisingly quiet today. The handful of people waiting in the terminal are either traveling for work or retirees traveling for fun. I’d like to retire and travel for fun starting today, but it looks like I’ll have to wait awhile before that happens. There are no children at all in the terminal. This is quite a contrast from the last time I was here in August. Back then, it took nearly an hour to get through security, and there were people everywhere.

Time to take care of some more business.

Chicago, IL – 4:30PM CDT
I’m sitting at O’Hare Airport, Gate F14, waiting for the connecting flight to San Antonio. The Flyer Talk members were right about O’Hare. It’s a zoo. There are masses of people everywhere. The weather has been overcast here in Chicago for most of the day today. That has caused flight delays and the domino effect has caused passengers to miss connections.

I remember a day when I would only fly non-stop. I hated connecting flights for this very reason. You miss one connection and your whole day is thrown off. I’m going to go back to flying non-stops.

I had to hike from Terminal B to Terminal F. This airport is huge. It took a good 15 minutes to hike from one terminal to the other.

After this flight and the delays, I may skip the next mileage run I have scheduled for September 23. I really don’t need the EQMs. I’ll qualify for Premiere without those miles. And I could use the time at home to take care of matters. I’m keeping my options open.

I need a candy bar to tide me over until dinner.