Back from Chicago..... Finally...

Last week I had probably one of the craziest experiences traveling to Chicago from Detroit, then back to Detroit from Chicago. Anyone who knows me probably already knows my horrible track record with traveling to Chicago or home from Chicago. Weather it is by Air, or by Car something always seems to make the travel portion of the trip so much longer.

This trip flying into Chicago O'Hare, we were grounded in Detroit, because O'Hare closed down 1 of their 3 runways because of some cross wind on that runway. This delayed me getting in by 1.5 hours, which also messed up my ride from the airport to the hotel. OK, not a huge deal, better safe and late with the high winds. Cool, I am over it.

During the week I had to take a cab to and from the client which was defiantly interesting to say the least.  We had everything from the driver who would slow way down because they were trying to drive up the fare costs, all the way to the cab driver that was trying to keep the fare low, but make a good tip for getting us there fast. The latter of the two reminded me of that game Crazy Taxi. (http://www.sega.com/gamesite/crazytaxifarewars/minigame/index.html).

So now it comes to Friday. Awesome, I get to go home and see my wife and kids. I leave the client site at about 3pm like they recommended to catch my 7pm flight. I already had the Shuttle scheduled to pick me up at the hotel at 3:40 which would have given me plenty of time to get to the airport, through security and catch my flight. Well they never showed up, my back up plan of taking a cab would have cost my first born child, and the cab drivers all said they weren't driving to O'Hare during rush hour. I ended up taking the train back from Chicago to Royal Oak.

After taking the train in such a last minute situation and having that work out so nice I think i am going to use that as my method of travel to and from Chicago from now on. I mean the train station is 13 miles away from my house in Michigan. No long security lines, more room in the seats, power plugs for each seat on the train, a snack car with food and alcohol and it left on time and arrived on time.

Keep the train in mind when traveling from Michigan to Chicago or Chicago to Michigan.