Long Time, No Sleep

This day began very early, in fact, a bit before midnight. Our bus departed for the airport at 12:30 a.m. On the way, somebody said, “My god, there’s an elephant in front of us!” Sure enough, there was a truck going down the road with an adult male elephant standing in the back, just riding down the road. Only in India.

Our flight departed just before 4 a.m. and we arrived in Dubai for a two hour layover, followed by the 15 hour flight to Chicago. Unfortunately, there was little sleep on the long flight. We expected to see snow in Chicago, but it was 55 degrees with rain there -- hardly winter at all.

Having only two hours between flights in Chicago was a concern, but the electronic passport readers really speed up that system so we got through immigration and customs very quickly. As it happened, we could have taken our time, because our flight to Minneapolis was delayed, first for 90 minutes, but then by nearly 2 hours. So a two hour layover became four hours.

Staying awake became difficult in Chicago. We had been traveling for well over 30 hours by then, and I had accumulated less than 4 hours of sleep over the previous 40 hours. Eyes would no longer focus on the book for reading.

Fortunately, Katherine was quick to pick us up, and the house was in good order upon our return.