Thursday, 8/12

 As far as hotels that are in corporate office parks go, it wasn’t a bad one.

First of all, I am finally--finally--back home.  It took an extra day and almost an extra hour sitting on the runway at O’Hare yesterday as yet another thunderstorm--like the one that snarled air traffic Monday--went through, but I finally got home.  I even got to see Loraine for the first time in over a day.

Right about now, you may be asking yourself “Didn’t Jim go to Savannah with Loraine”?  And I’d be answering “Why, yes, I did”.  But because we booked tickets separately she was rebooked to come home as scheduled Tuesday while I, with the exact same flight numbers and times, was rebooked to fly home Wednesday, something we didn’t discover until I tried to check in at the Savannah airport Tuesday morning at 5-what-the-heck-am-I-doing-up-so-early AM.

I decided to try flying standby to see if I could ride home with her, and I did get from Savannah to Charlotte (an airport we weren’t originally supposed to visit).  But when I saw that I was number 21 on a list of 38 standby passengers on an already overbooked flight, I knew I was toast.  So I played Rick to Loraine’s Ilsa and sent her on her way, after which I went off to join the Free French garrison in Brazzaville.

Well, actually I spent the next eight hours seeing if I could get to Chicago, but that was a no-go.  However, I did move up to 19 on the standby list, if that means anything.

I ended up Googling hotels near the airport, and chose one of the least expensive (but with a shuttle), a Hilton Garden Inn.  When I noticed driving up to it that it was in a corporate office park my hopes dimmed; no restaurants or grocery stores nearby.  But since I had been in airports for the past 12 hours I went out to explore the surroundings, and was pleasantly surprised when I saw this--

That’s right--in the middle of a corporate office park there’s a lake and a really nice walking trail that goes in all directions.  I had no idea it was there, and when I mentioned how nice it was to one of the employees she agreed that they really need to do a better job of promoting it.

And she’d be right.

So even though Tuesday will not rank among the most favorite days of my life, there was at least one thing for which to be thankful.  And it’s something that popped up in the most unexpected of places.

Now, I get to deal with the refuse of being gone for an extra day.  I have no idea how long it’ll take to dig out from that, but hopefully I’ll have a little time before Ore to Shore Saturday to get a few pictures organized and let you know how the trip went.  Because up until 4 or so Monday afternoon it went really, really well!

(jim@wmqt.com)