February 2nd Heading to Chicago

Amanda, Christine and I were dropped off at the airport by Lynn who was nice enough to leave work early and help us out.  Since we didn't have any bags to check we were able to head straight to security.  Amanda used her smart phone along with her American Airlines app to use as her boarding pass.  She was given an orange card so we thought she was going to get pulled to the side for a check but I guess they gave her that since she didn't have the paper to show if needed while going through the screening process.  The bad thing was I got through using her paper boarding pass which I used on accident and didn't realize I had done it until later when I noticed her paper was the one that they had marked.  Since we got to the airport early we took advantage of the time to eat lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen.

We were worried about our connecting flight at LAX because we were scheduled to land at 5:05 and our flight to Chicago was to leave at 5:45 with boarding beginning at 5:15.  Our flight from Fresno left a few minutes late but we got to the American Eagle terminal quickly after landing but then had to stand and wait for our carry on bags to get to the gate before we had to go and get on the bus to take us to the main terminal.  We did get lucky though and our gate wasn't too far once we got into the main terminal and they were already loading the plane.  Amanda was supposed to sit in row 15 in the middle section and she was very worried because the gentleman sitting in the isle seat was on the larger side and that the person who would sit in the window seat would be just as large and she would get smashed in the middle, but she got lucky and the window seat was left open so she was able to scoot over and take advantage of the extra room.  While Christine and I were seated in the back of the plane and by the time we got to our seats there wasn't any room in the overhead compartments by our seats so we had to put or carryons further back so when we had to wait for everyone to disembark the plane so we could get our bags.  We did have some turbulence to the point that the stewards had to stop our beverage service but it didn't last too long.  They played the movie Money Ball, which I thought was pretty good.  We arrived into Chicago early and headed to the rental car shuttle area.  The shuttle bus for Avis pulled up just as we got to the curb and as soon as we were seated he pulled away.  It took us about 15 minutes to get to the rental lot.  With it being that late at night there was only one person working the counter and he was helping someone that did not have a reservation or a credit card and after talking to him for what seemed like forever he finally left and headed to Hertz.  The other guy that had been on the shuttle with us had also pre-purchased his car rental online so it didn't take him long and he was on his way and then it was our turn.  So we then headed out to find a midsize car which we got a Hyundai Alantra (after driving this car I know I do not want one).

We got to our hotel, Hilton Garden Inn, just in time according to the hotel clerk because if we would have been just a few minutes later we might not have had a room because he would have put us down as a no show.  As soon as we got to our room Amanda had to do a bed bug search.  Since Charleen & Ben had stayed at a Hilton in Hawaii and were eaten alive by them Amanda has been adamant about searching her hotel rooms for them.

We quickly got ready for bed and as we finally laid down we could hear music.  Amanda was not happy with our neighbors how could they be so inconsiderate playing music that loud, when suddenly she recognized a Glee song and she jumped up and checked her bag and realized her Ipod had come on and she was the inconsiderate neighbor.