Apparently, Dad had planned a lay over in Iceland on our way to continental Europe. The weather in Chicago had other ideas though.
May 16, Thursday – departure day
We were packed and ready to go! Waiting for Donna Teeter to drive us to the airport. She arrived in her big maroon station wagon. We filled it up, four kids, two adults and baggage for 4 months camping in Europe. This was the only thing that happened on time this day.
10 p.m. O’Hare Airport-sitting in Icelandic DC8 waiting for plane to be repaired, they never did tell us what was wrong with the plane. I thought that maybe Icelandic Airlines would be like dogpatch airlines and so far it has been! Almost everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. We had arrived at the MPLS-STP airport at 3:30 pm. Our NW flight to Chicago was scheduled to leave at 5:10 pm arriving at O’Hare airport a little after 6 pm giving us about 3 hours before our Icelandic flight to Europe. We didn’t leave MSP until 6:10 pm and then we circled over O’Hare for about an hour. Big thunderstorms were causing flight delays. Thus we lost our three-hour lead time. We had less than 1 hour to get baggage and get it over to Icelandic Airlines terminal. Northwest would not transfer luggage to Icelandic airlines. Fortunately I found a couple of baggage handlers to help me with the luggage. We made it to Icelandic airlines with 10 minutes to spare to boarding time. But it didn’t do much good as we are still sitting in the plane waiting to take off.
The children have been good so far even though we have had considerable delays and it has been hot, over 100 f, and humid all day. The thunderstorm going strong outside of the airplane and it was raining like crazy while they are trying to fix the plane. We have been waiting 1.5 hrs in the plane. At the moment, a real Chicago thunderstorm blowing and raining outside. Glad that we are inside!
A mixed bag of people on the airplane; young and old alike! Two toughies in front of us, like our flight to London in 1972, one quite upset because she wants to smoke in the no-smoking section. The delay a real letdown after all the anticipation.
In a DC-8, which is a disappointment. It’s like expecting butter and getting margarine. Service kitchens and toilets poorly located. Some one just had a bottle of rum spilled over them by one of the flight attendants! People are like sheep; one stands up they all stand up! If two get in line everybody else does too. They just announced 2-hour delay due to mechanical difficulties, everyone standing up waiting to get out of the plane but there is a delay again. There was a promise of cold drinks once we got out of the plane. By the time we got off and into the terminal the cold drinks were all gone? Crowd getting surly and impatient, things are not going well.
The delay was longer than anticipated; it ended up being 19 hours. We were treated graciously by the airline once they realized that the repair was going to take much longer than first anticipated. They found us hotel accommodations, including 3 meals each and they paid for it all. Buses took us to the hotels. We arrived at the Arlington Park Hotel at 12:45 am. They put us in two double rooms. Needless to say everyone slept well that night. Theresa fell asleep standing up in the bus. And to top it all off, the bus driver got lost looking for the hotel. He had to stop at a gas station and ask directions.
Good night!