A Wild 48 Hours

There's no Illini information in here. That's why this post is unlocked. I'm simply unable to sleep right now (more on that in a moment) so at 2:21 am I have decided to just open up my laptop and tell you about the past 48 hours. Again, nothing about the Illini (well, a little). 100% about me.

Our story starts on Wednesday afternoon. My wife was flying home from her work trip to LA and I was flying home from the golf tournament down in Carlsbad so I drove up there and we took the same flight home. Burbank to Dallas to Champaign. Well, actually, Burbank to Dallas to... Peoria. Here's the story:

As you may already know, DFW (Dallas Fort Worth airport) is known for terrible connections. Having a gate ready to accept your plane is (and probably forever will be) an issue for them. When our pilot got on the radio to tell us there was a plane at our gate and we'd have to wait (everyone was expecting it), he noted that we were 9th in line waiting for a gate to open.

(When I put that frustration on Twitter – that DFW always has too many planes and not enough gates – some noted "wait until you hear that the oversell tickets on the flights as well". I'm aware of that one. Every airline at every airport does that. The single worst airport for gates to be open and connections to be made... is DFW. Ask any traveler anywhere.)

Obviously, we missed our connection to Champaign. We sat on the plane for 48 minutes before they found a gate for us. And it was in a different terminal. My wife was at the front of the plane and I was at the back (her ticket booked through work; my ticket booked as a personal flight without her status), so she headed out to try to make the flight. After sitting on the tarmac forever she only had 11 minutes until the plane was scheduled to depart but... maybe it's delayed?

By the time I get off the plane and head towards the other terminal, she texts me that the doors are already closed. But at the same time, we get a notification that the flight is delayed by 15 minutes. Maybe they'll open the door again? (Spoiler: they won't.)

I get to the gate and there are 5-7 people standing there. You know the drill here. Plane is still there, passengers have finally arrived from their late connections... but once the door closes, the door is closed. We all get text notifications that the flight is delayed 30 minutes, then 45 minutes, then an hour, but we still can't get on. At one point, they even re-attach the jetway and open the door of the airplane (which is why we're still hanging around thinking we might get on), but no, they shut the door, remove the jetway, and... continue to just sit there, taunting us. I even get to watch my bag being loaded on an airplane I won't be on (I can spot my bright orange Illini tag anywhere).

My wife has work stuff on Thursday. We need to get home. So we look around at other flights to other airports that might get us to Illinois. O'Hare had nothing, Bloomington had already left, but there was a 9:00 pm flight to St. Louis. Fly there and then rent a one-way car and drive it to Champaign? Let's do it.

As we're discussing that, we observe other passengers trying to figure out what to do. I hear one guy tell an airport employee "I need to get on that plane - I have a funeral to attend at 11:00 am tomorrow." So once my wife and I decided to go the "fly to St. Louis and rent a car" route, I offered the same to him. "We'll have room in our car, and you can ride with us and make that funeral tomorrow." He accepted. But he also noted that he had offered a young woman traveling alone that he'd help her figure out how to get to Champaign. We quickly added her to the group. My wife, myself, a woman from Taiwan who works at NCSA in Champaign, and... Mike White's son.

No, not Chris White the kicker. That's his older brother (and yes, I made a joke like "your brother couldn't have hit that Michigan field goal attempt with 2% more leg?"). This was Matt White. And he was headed to Doug Mills memorial service in Champaign.

So now our adventure begins. The first hurdle: as soon as the two of them rebook to the St. Louis flight, the flight shows as canceled. Back to square one. We're looking at an Indianapolis flight when a gate agent appears at the original Champaign gate. We ask him about rebooking to Indy and he notes that the Peoria flight, scheduled for the same time as the Champaign flight, is having a tire changed and hasn't left yet. He rebooks all of us on the Peoria flight and we head to that gate (with me embarrassing my wife by peppering Matt White with questions about his dad and Illini football in the 80's).

We get to the gate for the Peoria flight and... it's delayed an additional 45 minutes. That's fine. We can eat something. We all go get food, this little gaggle of four travelers, my wife and I the only ones who knew each other an hour before. We get back to the gate and... the flight is delayed an additional hour.

OK so now there's an issue. The rental car counters at Peoria close at 11:00 pm. And this latest delay has the flight getting in around 11:30. I try to pre-schedule an Uber, but we'd need an UberXL (four people plus luggage) and apparently you can't reserve an XL - only an UberX. Same with Lyft - no scheduling ahead for XL vehicles (at least in that location). So to go that route, we'd have to bank on someone accepting a 90 mile ride. In an XL. After midnight.

We finally board the flight a little before 10:00 pm (after they gave up on changing the tire and moved us to another gate with another plane). I'm trying to arrange rides with friends and offering to pay handsomely and Matt is calling car services. He finds one, and the car service (a transit van) is asking for a Venmo downpayment in order to show up at the airport. As Matt is trying to complete the Venmo transaction.... the flight takes off and he loses signal. That's fine... he can just use wifi in the air.

Care to guess which flight of my six recent flights had an airplane with the wifi not working? YOU ARE CORRECT. It was this one.

So now, as we're landing, Matt's checking his phone to see if the guy with the transit van had agreed to pick us up without the down payment going through. He had! There's a van waiting for us. We're actually going to make it home and he's actually going to attend the memorial service.

The rest is fairly simple. The only struggle with the rest of the trip was the conversation on the way to Champaign. Matt sat in the front seat, and the driver wanted to talk about the Trump trial. I wanted to talk about Illinois football in the 1980's and what Matt might remember (even though he was 13 years-old during the Rose Bowl season). I'm not sure who won that battle, but I did have fun talking 1999 Rams with Matt (Mike White was on Dick Vermiel's staff that year and Matt & I were both at the NFC Championship Game against Tampa Bay).

We get to Champaign, the driver (who saved the day for us by showing up without that deposit going through) dropped Matt at the house he was staying and then took the rest of us to the airport (where our car was in the lot). We then took the young woman who worked at NCSA (I'd use her name but I can't remember the spelling and I don't want to butcher it) to her apartment in Champaign, and then we headed home. The time on the clock when my head hit the pillow: 3:01 am.

So why was it a wild 48 hours and not just a wild 12 hours? I woke up the next day... sick. I was in denial at first, but after trying to speak to some people, I realized I barely had a voice. I got up at 8:30 but was back in bed by 10:00 am. I slept until 2:30 pm, my wife forced me to go to Urgent Care, they gave me some antibiotics, I took some and tried to eat some ramen noodles.... I should just give you my full sleep schedule starting with the moment my head hit the pillow at 3:01 am:

3:00 am to 8:30 am
10:00 am to 2:30 pm
7:15 pm to 10:15 pm
11:30 pm to 3:00 am
4:15 am to 9:45 am

So that means from 3:00 am on Wednesday to 10:00 am today, across those 31 hours, I slept a total of... TWENTY TWO HOURS?? What even is that? I knew I was exhausted after five days covering golf + my long travel day getting in at 3:00 am. But 22 hours of sleep? That's wild, man.

Anyway, it's the middle of the night and now I can't sleep. My body is all "sleep? didn't we just do that for, like, a full day?" So maybe I'm just up all night? Maybe I'll get tired soon? I feel better (those antibiotics really hit the spot), so maybe the 22 hours of sleep were my body saying "STAHP" and this is now a green light. ARE WE STAYING UP ALL NIGHT, BODY?

I'll let you know tomorrow. Or today. Or... whatever. I'm off to compile the list for The 90 Illini.

(Which is already behind schedule since the opener is on Thursday.)