Leg Two and Three...Almost Home

After six long hours...the flight from London to Chicago was uneventful. Savannah napped a little and was awake a lot but relatively well behaved. Let's face it when your first flight departs at 1:00 am and you have a total of three flights and close to 24 hours of travel, everyone wants to cry at some point...especially when you are two!

We have never taken the London connection before. My vote for future flights is "not again", unless we are going to do a stop over in London. It just makes the trip too long. I felt like I had been traveling for 5 days.

We had a two hour layover in Chicago...before the home stretch...45 minutes at the most from Chicago to St. Louis. Unfortunately,Chicago was a disaster. Between the longest line I have ever seen at passport control/customs and the rudeness of some follow travelers/TSA/airport employees we ended up sprinting to our final connection. I even pulled out the "I am traveling internationally by myself with a toddler who is in a cast, going to miss the last leg of my travel, almost in tears, what can you do" card with no success. If the kind Middle Eastern couple behind me had anything to do with it I would have been pushed to the front of the line but there were hundreds of people in front of us, also missing their flights that would have strongly disagreed! As we finally starting making our way to the semi-front of the line, a Chicago Police Officer opened up the "military only" line for a family also traveling with young kids. I made my uninvited move and followed them to the line...this was the only way I would have a chance to get through customs, reclaim our checked bags, recheck the bags and try to make it to the gate (which is always at the other end of the terminal in these situations). By a small miracle, Savannah and I made it to the jet way as they closed the door behind us. Long gone were the kind and sympathetic travelers...instead we were greeted with lots of businessmen stares and glares. Of course, Savannah chose the 45 minute flight to fall asleep as we were running to the gate (how this was possible I don't know). She slept the entire way to St. Louis were we were greeted by Chris' mom!

Since moving it has become very welcoming to see the sign in your first US connection that says "Welcome to the United States" or when the pilots says "Welcome Home".