Philadelphia 4AM

Well, I am now booked on the same flight leaving Friday at 8:30PM. I will get to London Gatwick Saturday morning. US Airways brought in a large group to rebook the entire flight to try to get them to where ever they were originally going. They filled the next Manchester flight and then starting routing. Luckily, the agent had reserved a seat for me on the Gatwick flight. But the line was crazy and the crowd nearly started a riot at the counter. Everyone had a say about how wrong it was to keep us until so late. The airlines passed out vouchers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and for a room. I didn’t grab the room as I had decided to stay at the airport and reduce the variables in the equation. I had no good reason to do that, just some intuition. (I later heard that several people who had been promised rooms did not have one when they got to the hotel. They couldn’t check back in to our area in the terminal as it was all closed and they had to camp by the baggage claim.) Several groups decided to stay at the airport and we started staking our claim to an area. The chairs have permanent arms, so they were useless unless you were a skinny little thing and could squeeze under an arm. I found a place by an outlet so that I could grab some power. I was also next to Clive and his son (see the photo of them with their cart) from the Manchester area, so I felt safe in the little group. I plumped up my backpack, stacked on two airline issued pillows, laid a blanket on the floor and piled two on top of me to stay warm for the night. I was sound asleep in seconds.

Oh, and many many thanks to Nick. He is the only one that I know in Phoenix who would be up at this time of the night. I was able to text message him and he sent a message to Kalen. Thanks, Nick!