A Week in Paradise

A Minor Change of Plan

Chapter 22

Los Angeles

Los Angeles International Airport

8:00 A.M.Pacific Time

The six hours of flying were over, and the next plane that would take us to Denver had no crew to pilot it. There was another hour delay, and we were going to be late for our next flight if we waited. So we reported to the helpdesk, and we got on a different plane, but none of us sat together except the little ones. We were scattered around. Mom and Roman sat on one seat, Dad and Lydia one row behind them, Alana, lucky her, sat right across from Dad at seat 51, and I sat all alone with two strangers at seat 37, which was at least 5 rows ahead of my family. To make it worse, I was in the middle seat, and two old men were on either side of me. I at least could have gotten the window seat. That would have cheered me up a bit. But no, a sleepy old man had that seat. It made me slightly mad that he had the window seat, and he closed the window so he could sleep. His jacket smelled like he smoked, and the other old man just cursed at his phone the whole ride. I just sat back, enjoying my soda when it was delivered. We were going to Chicago, though, not Denver, since we had gotten on a new plane. So we had to go past our home, and then come back. I decided to sleep.

In Chicago, we waited a bit, and passed time by exploring. We ate McDonalds, and then we went down an escalator to our gate. The escalator led to an impressive underground tunnel that went under the runway and connected the two main buildings of the airport. The tunnel had flashing lights on the ceiling, glowing in red, blue, purple, green, and yellow. One of those flat escalator things ran down the middle, that was used to travel faster. I liked them, because when they were empty I liked to walk backwards, making faces and peace signs to Alana. On either side of the transporter there was just a regular floor for people who just wanted to walk. On the other side, we found a massive dinosaur bone statue. Then our plane was ready, so we got on our plane, and an hour later, we were home.

The End