We Made It

"Hello folks, this is your captain.  Just wanted to let you know we have reached our cruising altitude of 35,000 ft.  Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight to Chicago."


40 minutes later
"Flight attendants, return to your seats immediately.  We are landing this plane in ten minutes."


I begin to look around.  Everyone on my flight is looking around.  "Why are we landing when I still have Diet Coke on my tray?,"  say the questioning eyes around me.  "And why do I see only fields out my window?," say others waking from a groggy traveling nap.  Then the plane drops suddenly, and I am thankful for that seatbelt we so dutifully buckle high up in the sky.  Ten minutes later the plane does indeed land and the captain returns to the intercom.

"Folks, we have made an emergency landing in Omaha, NE.  Please do not be concerned by the firetrucks which are surrounding us.  This is standard procedure in situations like these."

"Situations like what?," I wonder to myself while the girls bounce in their seats and say, "Are we already in CHICAGO?!?!."

We file dutifully off the plane, and I notice a faint smoke smell in the air.  As the several hundred passengers file off our huge 747 into the tiny four walled concourse that is the Omaha airport, we quickly fill every seat and much of the floor space that the small airport has to offer.  Thus begins a seven hour wait sitting on the floor in Omaha with my girls wondering if we will ever get to Chicago. During this time we find out that the cockpit of our plane had filled with such severe smoke that the flight crew had been wearing oxygen masks as they landed the plane.

 After a seven hour wait for United to bring in another plane that could accommodate such a large number of passengers, we then get the joy of sitting in a hot airplane for an hour while they figure out how to get our bags on the plane (the airport was not equipped for such large planes to land and had no baggage equipment to load the bags into our new plane).  It got so hot in the plane they finally said, "We can allow a handful of passengers off this plane to get some air, but unfortunately we can't allow everyone off. Oh, and by the way Chicago has grounded all flights because of weather, so we are not sure when we will be able to take off."  Great, I'm being held captive by United flight attendants.

It wasn't until almost 10pm- eight hours after our projected arrival- that we finally touched down in Chicago.  Rynn and Eleanor were absolutely amazing.  They hung in there great and even made some new friends as all the moms on the plane began to pool our DVDs and laptops for some group movies on the floor of the Omaha airport.

We are finally here, in our home, and we have even taken a swim in Lake Michigan and bought our summer beach pass.  No chairs to sit in or dishes to eat upon, but we can go to the beach!  The church has been amazing.  They have organized meals for us, offered to help clean our rental home, and invited us for meals.  We have been awed at their kindness.  We are here.  We are safe, and I don't need to see another airplane for many months to come.

watch a video from an Omaha local news clip @ http://www.kmtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12763486