Hey Granbonny:
Hey Granbonny:
I got to this thread a little late, but thanks for thin king of me. The first big storm hit the day we left. Our road is very steep, huge drop offs, & no safety barriers. So-since I knew Mrs. Smith was wasn't going to even consider delaying the trip to see Ellie, I parked the car at the foot of the mountain the day before the snow arrived, and we started the first mile of the trip to Puerto Rico on my ATV.
When we got to the airport in Albuquerque, the mess in Denver wiped out the first leg of our flight to Chicago. The airline people said no room on any flight to O'Hare. Albuquerque has free hi-speed wireless internet, so we went to a corner and found one they missed. The guy was impressed, and booked us & 2 other people on that flight.
We arrived at O'Hare having missed our connecting flight to Puerto Rico, with no clue as to luggage. We had to get a room near the airport, and were there 2 hours early to get the 1 flight to Puerto Rico. Big problem-because we had been given paper tickets when we changed flights, we couldn't print a boarding pass at any Kiosk, etc. The airport personnel were over-whelmed, there seemed to be one line for everything, and it wasn't moving nearly fast enough to get on the plane.
That's when we had the idea that saved the trip. As hard as it was, we left the line we had been standing in for an hour, and went outside to get into the long (but much shorter) line for curb-side check-in, even though we had no baggage to check. We stood nearly an hour in this line, with only partial protection from the rain. When we got to the front I had a wad of bills in my hand for the tip, we got our boarding pass and made the flight.
I am a little concerned about our flight back on Jan 2nd, but for now hope to enjoy the weather and beach.