Nightmare in Atlanta Airport

So here's my airport story:

I was flying home on Sunday. The original plan was to arrive at the Regan Airport around 12:30PM and then my flight would leave there at 2:05PM. Then I would fly to Atlanta, Georgia and get a connecting flight from Atlanta to St. Louis, Missouri at 4:15PM. Then I was supposed to be picked up by my older sister.

This is what actually happened.

I arrived at the Regan airport between 12 and 12:30PM. Good so far. I get there and I meet up with some of the students that were also flying home. The only problem is their flight was delayed. I thought, 'Oh no big deal... Mine will be fine.' I now realize that that fact was a BAD OMEN for my flight.

My flight to Atlanta was delayed. At first they said that it was just going to be an hour. Then it turned into five hours. So I boarded the plane around 7PM. Then after I got all excited that I was finally going to get to leave the Regan airport finally, we sat on the plane on the tarmac for nearly 2 hours! Finally the pilot informed us that we were going to get to take off. Everyone started clapping and cheering.

We arrived an hour and a half later at the airport in Atlanta. Obviously I missed my connecting flight to St. Louis. So I was informed I had to go to gate C21 and get rebooked. So I did that and the quickest flight I could get was a midnight flight. I booked it because I just wanted to go home. Well I go to gate C18 to wait to board the plane. Then we find out the flight is going to be delayed to 2:50AM. By this time I just don't care anymore. I just want to get away from this airport.

2:00AM comes around and I am informed that our plane was moved to a different gate. So everyone got up and moved to the new location. We sat there for about 40 minutes and then were told that the flight attendants were going to be late. So they pushed our flight back to 3:10AM. Well I immediately found this to be a bad sign. I was just telling the person sitting on the floor next to me about my gut feeling, and there was an announcement over the gate intercom. Our flight had been cancelled.

Honestly I could have cried. But I don't cry, and I didn't see the point. Well then they told me that I had to go to the Customer Service desk to rebook again. Now let me tell you about the line at the Customer Service desk. It had approximately 500 people in it. I talked to one guy in line and he told me that he'd been waiting for over 3 hours and he wasn't even close to halfway through.

So I'm getting more and more frustrated trying every avenue of hope I can possibly find. Finally I'm told that there isn't going to be a flight to ILLINOIS period (let alone St. Louis) until 10PM TUESDAY! I was close to insanity. So I hear that there are some people renting cars and driving to their destinations. I decided that that would be a surer bet to hitchhike rather than wait for a flight.

I go around the airport asking around, trying to find someone who is going to or through Illinois. Finally I find a group of people that are driving to Bloomington, IL. I give them my cell number and they promise to call me when they find a car. I decided that I should also find someone else as a back-up plan in case I never get a call from the Bloomington people. So I give my cell number out to two more groups of people, one of which was driving to St. Louis.
The St. Louis people were the only one's that ended up calling. I told them I was ready to leave whenever they were, so we took off in our newly rented Mercury Sable. That whole experience is dead to me. The ride was not enjoyable. I'm stopping at that though so I don't say something I shouldn't. I made it to Carbondale, Illinois only an hour behind my friends... Basically I hitchhiked from Georgia to Illinois! At least that's what I like to tell everyone!!! lol

This is the group of people I 'hitchhiked' with.