First, let me say that we had a great Thanksgiving, and really enjoyed spending time with Mom, Bampa, and Myra.

Second, let me say that getting to Nashville totally and completely sucked. Here’s a quick rundown of our lovely trip:

• got to the airport 2 hours before our flight, which was supposed to leave at Noon PST

• boarded our flight 2 1/2 hours after it was supposed to leave due to weather in Chicago, where we were connecting through

• sat on the plane on the tarmac for 2 hours waiting for Chicago

• 4 hour flight; uneventful. but no movie. arrived 10:30p CST at ORD (figured we were late for our 7:15p flight to Nashville, but amazingly it hadn’t taken off yet)

• spent the next 2 hours on the plane from SJC on the tarmac in Chicago, because all the gates were full – they were very very behind on the deicing machines

• got into O’Hare at 12:30a, and (hooray!) our Nashville flight still hadn’t left, so we went over to the gate (it’s worth mentioning here that O’Hare was absolutely packed with people – a lot of them sleeping on airport-provided cots in the hallways)

• waited for 90 minutes to board our plane to Nashville when they canceled it – the crew had been working for too many hours. good law. bad timing for us.

• so we took a very bad taxi to a hilton that we had already booked (yay!) – got there at 3a, slept until 6a (in our clothes – no bags), when we caught a taxi back to O’Hare

• this time we were delayed boarding for an hour and then, guess what, sat in the plane on the tarmac for 2 hours while we waited for the fuel truck.

• got to nashville where we were met by Bampa at something like 1p on Thanksgiving. waited an hour for our luggage. nope.

• had a great Thanksgiving dinner at Mom’s. was perfect. seriously.

• had our bags delivered around 10p to Mom’s house. took showers. changed clothes.

Tough trip. But we’d do it again. Probably. :-)