Home for the holidays

As anyone from the Pacific Northwest knows, we have had quite a bit of snow and freezing rain for the past week and a half. I was originally scheduled to get back to Portland on Saturday the 20th, but due to the weather my flight was canceled and I could not fly back until Monday. And even Monday was iffy, as there was still snow in Portland (about 10 inches or so, in a city that shuts down after only a light dusting). But we departed at 8 am from O'Hare, and everything seemed fine. Until we got to Portland.

Apparently the runway was too icy to land, and we didn't have enough fuel to circle while they de-iced and cleaned the runway, so we were diverted to Seattle. Yay. So we landed in Seattle, only to wait over an hour to get to a gate so we could refuel. We finally refueled, and off we fly back to Portland. We landed at 2:20pm (we were originally scheduled to land at 10:40am), but we had to wait for a gate in Portland, too. So wait we did. Until 5pm, when we finally had a gate open up so we could disembark. But the fun doesn't end, because then we had to wait an hour and a half for our luggage to show up at baggage claim. Thank goodness my express shuttle driver was kind enough to wait for me. Otherwise who knows when or how I would have gotten home.

Anyway, after my 4 hour flight turned into an eleven hour flight, I was very glad to finally be at home.