Travel for our trip has been pretty interesting!  Heading to Chicago, things went really well – no problems with the Shuttle, fast processing with the check in and baggage, the plane ride out was great, and most importantly, everyone and everything made it to Chicago just fine.  No problems.

We rented our vans – they were a little more expensive than we anticipated, but they were nice.  We had maps and iPhone GPS to find the hotel and that went fairly well.

The forcast was rain rain rain.  It looked like every day of our stay was going to be a downpour.  But what happened was completely different.  It did not rain at all during our camps – we were able to have them outside with fantastic weather.  There were sunny days and overcast days – all of them warm and no rain.  How good is that!

But we were destined to get a taste of the other side of travel…

It started on our trip to see the Shedds Aquarium – they were offering the aquarium for free this week.  When we got off the “el” it was a downpour.  It was an amazing amount of water coming down and sometimes you could hear a wave of rain head down the street before the deluge hit.  Ultimately we didn’t make it to Shedds, which was disappointing, but we headed to return the vans with what we thought was plenty of time.
About 1.5 miles from our destination, we hit a wall of traffic.  At one point, I saw spouts of water being hosed up into the air.  It seemed an odd place to have a fire, but we couldn’t tell through the traffic what was happening.  After quite a while, we found out that with all the rain, they had had a “flash flood” on our interchange and it had damaged the road.  The spouts of water were firetrucks pumping the water from the area.  They couldn’t get the repair done very quickly and since the water was still 3 feet deep(one car had tried and didn't make it), they rerouted traffic off the highway.  We made it to the rental facility pretty quickly after that, but we found out on the way to the airport that our plane had been delayed.

Finding out about the delay actually came from a parent – I love the way that the tools and technology are available for our youth to be in almost constant contact with family and each other.  This is a great example of how a parent, Staci’s mom, had a moment to check our flight and ended up notifying us of the delay.  It didn’t end there, the calls started coming in from other parents as well.  Today’s trip with youth is so different from my days in high school when the youth have knowledge that the adults haven’t discovered yet.  It took little time to confirm and we ended up being placed in a line that looked about 3 days long…

After about 40 minutes in line, an attendant was walking down the line telling people how to contact Delta and reschedule flights because most were canceled for the day.  When she came to us, she took us as a group and checked us in – our flight had not been canceled yet.  We again went through security with no problem, but then the wait began.

After getting to our gate at about 4:20, the estimated departure time on the reader board kept getting later and later.   Evidently, the area was in tornado watch and there was quite a bit of lightening.  Not getting much information from the desk clerks, we ended up talking with a Delta ground crew boss in a different gate where we were waiting it out who told us the “real” story.  Because of the lightening, planes had been diverted to other cities – ours to Detroit.  Even when the storm would lift, it would be some time before planes came in to Chicago to handle the loads waiting to go out.  Our planned connection with the Shuttle at 7:30 became our plan B at 9:00 and then plan C at 10:30.  Ultimately, we didn’t get on a plane until 10:40 and we knew we would have to wait in Salt Lake for the first shuttle at 8:00… that would be plan D.  Bummer…

They changed our flight out of Salt Lake to include a stopover in Cincinnati (how is that on the way?) which gave me a chance to have some fun with Mary, she’s such a kick!  And we finally rolled up in Salt Lake at about 3:30am.  We parked in the gate we arrived at and most everyone slept to the sound of running vacuums,  polishing floors, and an interesting financial tip show on the news station on the TV’s.  It wasn’t ideal – kids were either stretched out on the floor or convoluted over handles of the chairs.

Not quite as smooth as when we came in - still We felt a strong hand controlling us and keeping us safe and ultimately I think it was a good experience to have those troubles.  While it was uncomfortable, and boy, was it uncomfortable at times - no one complained.  The youth were tired but positive and it still was really wonderful to be among them.