Stranded at the Airport

We had quite the adventure on our way home. At the airport, our airplane came in about fifteen minutes after we were supposed to depart. Then, it took the airline two and a half hours to announce that the plane had been damaged by hail, and would take a few hours to fix. (We were supposed to depart at 3; we later learned that the flight departed around 11pm.) Since this flight was the first leg of our trip, we had no chance of making a connecting flight to our final destination since it was getting late. So even if the plane was repaired quickly, there was no point for us to get on it.

This was really unfortunate because:
 1) Andrew had spent a considerable amount of time training for a 100 mile bike ride up Mount Nebo with two friends, and the ride was the next morning. We were both sad that he didn't get to go. And that was $55 down the drain.
2) We had spent two hours driving to the airport, three and a half hours at the airport (we were early), we didn't have a car, and it would take two and a half hours for Andrew's brother to drive our way with a car, and two hours to for us to drive back to Andrew's parents' house. With a two year old.

It was a very long day.

On the bright side:
1) We got to spend one more day with Andrew's parents.
2) The airline gave us $600 in vouchers.
3) Instead of flying out of Indianapolis, the airline let us rebook a flight out of Champaign, sparing us and Andrew's parents a lot of driving.

That's life, right? Andrew's two brothers also had trouble. Evan's family almost ran out of gas because a tornado took out electricity for 100 miles around. They were very lucky to find one gas station (with long lines) that still had power; it took days for the area to get power back. And Peter hit some serious traffic because a 16 wheeler jack-knifed on the highway. All our problems were caused by weather. But we all made it home eventually.