Chicago Mural

I left Grand Rapids much earlier than I wanted to this morning. The life of an airline employee usually entails flying standby, and internal US flights are VERY busy right now. There’s a LOT of pent up demand and airlines are still in the process of bringing back their planes after many were flown to and parked in the Arizona desert during the pandemic. It takes awhile to get them through their checks and back into service. So - the only flight that looked like I might get on was an early morning departure, and even then there were NO passenger seats and I had to sit on one of the spare Flight Attendant jumpseats. No complaints - I was just glad to get on, but I haven’t had to do that in YEARS!  

Leaving early meant that I had 10 hours to wait in Chicago before my flight to London left. I decided I would get a day room at an airport hotel. For one thing it would give me several hours free from having to wear a mask. I don’t mind wearing masks, but over 20 hours is a bit much!  

I had to walk through some tunnels in the airport to get to the place where the hotel shuttles pick up and I came across this loooong mural!  A very colourful and blippable representation of the city of Chicago!  

After several hour rest at the hotel I was back at the airport for early evening flight to London. There was NO problem getting on that flight. There’s still very restricted travel between the US and the UK so the flights aren’t even half full. I got a very nice seat at the pointy end of the plane!