Ugh!  I really need to post about my/our ordeal last friday.... but it wears me out just thinking about.  I need to do it soon, or I won't be as able to recall the details, however, even the thought of starting the tale makes me feel tired, and alone, and helpless. 

After I blogged on Friday night, happily waiting for Jason to board his plane from Chicago and come home to me, the airline decided that the replacement crew would be too close to their maximum hours if they flew down AND flew back, so rather than have the crew spend the night here, they cancelled the flight.  Now, mind you, there were 4 flights scheduled for that airline that day, and only one actually came down.

At any rate, Ohare is only 1.5 - 2 hours from here, so I said I would come up and get him, and bring him home.  I told him quickly, though.  He forgot to pack a charger for his cell phone, and after the week, it was about out of juice.  So up I start along the highway, going along my merry way.  Jason called to check my progress when I was about 20-30 minutes away, and then I didn't hear from him again.  Well, I drove along, diligently looking for the green highway sign that said "To O'hare Airport" that I had followed last time I went there.  Apparently, those signs do not exist anymore, because I found myself heading into the city.  Knowing I was in the wrong place, I tried to quickly text Jason that I was lost, so that he didn't worry about me.  It said the call had failed.  So I tried to call him... again, call failed.  Now, I couldn't believe I wouldn't have a signal in the city, so I assumed that his phone had finally died.  Everyone else I knew was 150 miles away and sound asleep.  I turned around and tried again.  This time, as I hit one of the suburbs, I knew I had not just missed the sign last time, it really wasn't there.  I stopped at a shell station for directions, but the clerk acted like he had never heard of Ohare, so I asked a customer.  He got me a little closer... I found a round called the Elgin-Ohare expressway.  Yippee!  Naturally, I assumed this magical road would have Elgin on one end and Ohare on the other.  So I started in the direction of Ohare, but found myself in a heavily residential area.  So I turned around, assuming I was tired and had gotten turned around.  But that way the road ended.  And so I stopped at a Mobil station.  This very friendly and very helpful woman gave me directions once again, and told me specifically that I would think I was lost, but to keep going.  I didn't think I could be more lost than I was, so I just kept going.  Most of her directions rang true, but then things didn't seem to match anymore, and so I stopped at a Marathon station (different stop, different brand ;) ).  He got me to the final road I needed, and I started to feel better.  It seems I came to Ohare from the back, and had to circle all the way around the entire airport.  But I made it.  Only 2.5 hours late!  And now, out of gas.  But I parked, and ran in to Terminal 1, hoping for one of those joyous reunions you see in the movies.  But there was no Jason.  I walked up and down the length of the terminal 6 times to search, but no Jason.  I finally went outside to see if he went out for a smoke (no), and decided to try to call one last time - call failed.  I was on the verge of tears at this point.  It was 3:30 am. I had been in the car for 4 hours, and I missed my husband!  Not knowing who to call, or what to do, my fingers dialed our house - empty except for the cats - 200 miles away.  Call failed.  Ok, something was wrong with MY phone!  I shut it off, hoping a reboot would work as well on it as it did my computer.  Success!  I tried to dial Jason's phone, but it went straight to voicemail.. damn!  He was out of juice.  The my phone started alerting me to all the textx and voicemail I had.  I checked the first one from my Dad.  I had texted him earlier not to call us for breakfast, and assumed he texted back right after... "where are you?"  I texted back "chicago" not thinking he'd see it until morning.  And then I started checking my voicemail.  I heard my husband's paniced voice asking where I was and what had happened, and I lost it.  I sobbed to the air around me "I don't know where you are!"  The fourth message was an unknown male, talking to my husband in the background.  I would learn later that this was the State Police, whom he had called after my parents in search of help.  I called me parents.  My dad answered, and all I could babble out was "Where's Jason?!"  They didn't know.  I keep looking, and they waited for Jason to call back.  He finally did, at 4am, and they asked  where he was, told him to stay put, and then called me.  They said he was at the bakery in terminal 1.  As I said before I had be all over terminal 1, but I checked again.... 2 bakeries... no Jason.  At that heart sinking moment of despair, I happened to see an ecalator, being a pillar and completely hidden from view, going up.  I tried it, turned around, and saw a bakery, and next to it, stood my Jason!  And just like in the movies, he turned around, saw me walking towards him, and broke into a run to hug me. ;) It was so sweet.  By the time we made it home again, it was 7 am, and I had been up for 24 hours.  It felt like a luxurious day of sleeping in, and I had my guy again. :)  Yippee.

We didn't see his luggage until Sunday.  We had to call the airline and have them put a tag on the luggage that said we needed it on the next flight down.  Well, the cancelled the next flights that were to come down.  After all that luggage (and I can imagine many unhappy people) they trucked the luggage down and delivered it to us at home.  Now, mind you it was bright and sunny and beautiful all weekend.  But that's neither here nor there.  We have him and his stuff.  And that was our big ordeal!