A mid-air slalom through thunder!

You'd think that after close to 50 crew changes by one mode of transport or another, excitement wouldn't be that easy to come by. Or maybe I'm all wrong and 5 years is really nothing in the greater scheme of things. Be that as it may, I haven't had this much excitement in one crew change in a while. (Angola doesn't count, for several mostly unfortunate reasons.)

There was the weather, even though Alex had passed, the weather gods kept throwing thunderstorm after thunderstorm right at us! This of course had us all on our toes for the last week or so, but it all came to a head when on the morning of crew change day the skies dawned gloomy and overcast and the first chopper kept getting delayed further and further into the day.

I was supposed to be on the second flight, and had that remained the case, I would have missed my flights out of New Orleans. As it turned out, I managed to get myself bumped up to the first chopper out, and what followed has to be the most exciting chopper ride I've had yet! For all the wrong reasons. Let's just say that, thrilling as it was, I would rather not go flying again under low lying thunder clouds or weaving in and out of the ominous looking columns of grey where the clouds descended to sea level in torrents of heavy rain!

And that wasn't all! Everything worked out fine till I arrived at Chicago O'Hare, and there the weather caught up with me again! Heavy rain shut down the airport for a little while and the ensuing traffic jam leading up to the runway meant that I ended up spending well over two hours in the little Embraer prop instead of 45 minutes.

But, as they say, all's well that ends well. I made it to my cousin in the impossibly flat and rather warm Bowling Green, OH in the middle of the night, and very close to the end of my ability to stay awake a minute longer :).

Currently: on holiday!!

Listening to: Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova - Falling slowly