The Worst Vacation EVER!

Daughter Kim writes...

I work in the tech industry. In 1999 I went back to be engineering director at a small company where I had worked for most of 1990s as a computer programmer. Because I was familiar with the "legacy" programs, I automatically became the Y2K compliance guy. It was my job to convince management and our customers that our installed software was not going to implode on January 1,2000. I worked countless nights and weekends and by fall, it seemed I was sleeping at that place in order to get the Y2K compliance project wrapped up.

At the same time, Southwest Airlines came into the KC airport and offered$50 round trip tickets to Chicago. I had been working so hard and so many long hours that I decided that I wanted to splurge on a vacation and take all the nieces and nephews to Chicago to the Science and Industry Museum for their Spring Break(a place I remembered with awe from when I was a kid).
I conspired with all the Moms and Dads and convinced at least one adult from each family to go along on the trip with me and Grandma and Gramps and the kids. Chicago had just opened a brand new convention center. I booked rooms there. One of my friends grew up in Chicago and a friend of the family ran a limo service. So I booked limos to pick us up at the airport and take us to the hotel. On Christmas morning, the kids each opened a package that told them they were going to Chicago for Spring Break in March. It was a glorious Christmas. Everybody was so excited.

Then March came in like a lion as they say. The trip was a complete disaster. Everything that could go wrong did. I am not exaggerating. Literally, everything that could go wrong DID! I was so tired and stressed after all my long hours working that I couldn't stop crying at my dream vacation gone bad.

Come to think of it, the blog is actually the perfect forum for this story because everybody that went on the trip can add the part of the disaster that they remember best.
John, Joann, Tom, Zac, Jason, Hannah, Caleb, Jordie--none of you guys have blogged here yet. You were all part of this giant disaster. I expect each of you can add something that I've since chosen to forget.
Now let's start the story...

Those of you that don't live in Kansas may not know that Kansas is the primo spot for meteorologists. They love it here. We have tornados, floods, extreme hot, extreme cold and it is completely unpredictable. Often the temperature drops or rises 40 or 50 degrees in one day. On the day we are scheduled to leave for our Spring Break Chicago trip it is snowing. Snowing a lot. We called the airport to confirm our flights and all things were go so we headed out the the airport. Everybody checked in. We all got our boarding passes and then we sat. And sat. And sat. Now this was pre-9/11 air travel so there were people everywhere in the terminal. All of them were waiting just like we were. Some were trying to get on planes. Some were there to see off traveling relatives and would return to their KC area homes as soon as planes left the ground. Our group was mostly pre-teen and teenage kids so we parked ourselves on the floor against the wall--leaving the chairs for older people. As time passed, people started milling around. No one can just sit for that long. As kids will do, my nieces and nephews found a way to keep themselves occupied.

When we checked in, Southwest airlines gave each of us a boarding pass. These were large re-usable plastic cards with a passenger count number printed on them (not seat numbers like the more traditional airlines). So we had cards with numbers like 19, 38, 24. We had a big group so we had lots of cards among us. Now remember that the kids were sitting on the floor along the walls and people were walking in the hallways passing by them like it was a parade or something. Next thing I know, the people walking by are stopping and pointing. Some of these people are irritated, some are laughing and the kids are all giggling. The boys had collected everybody's boarding passes and were "rating" the girls that walked by them in the "parade" by holding up the plastic boarding cards with the numbers on them. Moms of girls that got high scores pointed and laughed. Moms of girls that got low scores were offended. Some of them berated the boys which caused huge outbursts of laughter as soon as the offended Mom rounded the corner in the terminal hall.

Finally, the decision was made. Too much snow and the planes were grounded. Everyone would have to come back tomorrow for rescheduled flights. The next day, we got up really early, went back to the airport. Flights were leaving KC! We boarded our plane and we were off. Unfortunately, the storm that grounded us the night before had moved in a northeasterly direction and no planes were landing in Chicago. I'll stop here and let somebody else pick up on the Ohio part of our trip from KC to Chicago.