7/29/23

 The alarm went off at 2:15. We had about a 3 hour drive to where we needed to return the car. Then a 15-20 minute shuttle ride to the airport. 

Since I had the bear incident, I was a bit nervous about us driving at night. Paul was doing the driving but I was the extra set of eyes. I don’t think he really understood how fast these animals were until we passed a car that was off the road with its 4 ways on.

The front of the car was smashed in, airbags deployed and windshield smashed! It was clear he hit something big.

The car was off the road on our side of the road, but facing us as if he crossed over our lane into the grass. I got out the passenger side to walk over to see if the driver was ok. I paused a moment to prepare for the worst. 

Was this person alive? Conscious? Badly injured?  Was I going to have to deliver life saving measures? As I approached the car, thankfully the driver got out to indicate he was ok and the rangers were on the way. Phew!

In the road ahead we’re several bison and they were standing around the one that had been hit. I am not sure if the one that had been hit was killed or not.

They were concerned about their friend. They were grieving. Each stopping to bow down to the fallen one. They stayed with their friend for several minutes. We watched helplessly. It was awful. We could hear them bellowing.

It was upsetting. I am not an expert. I am often wrong. However, from our standpoint, it appeared this fellow was going faster than the posted speed limit. The evening speed limit is reduced to account for the lack of visibility. Had he been following the posted speed limit, I think his car wouldn’t have been as damaged. The car as it was, appeared totaled. I understand accidents happen. I am glad he wasn’t hurt as his car appeared totaled. I hope he wasn’t speeding and this beautiful creature was lost to the stupidity of humans. I am sorry our species let this herd down and took this life.

We drove almost 3 hours to return to the rental car and shuttle to the airport. We made it through security like a breeze.

We said goodbye to the beautiful scenery and amazing wildlife. We were all tired and it was still the beginning of the day. Our flight took off around 8:00 am.

We hit turbulence on the way to Chicago. Kind of a lot of turbulence. The flight attendants were ordered to take their seats. The captain came on and announced that it was going to be about 10 minutes of turbulence and that it was at all altitudes. I sat hoping that Avery, Paul and Julie were doing ok since none of us could sit together. I rather enjoy turbulence. It is fun. Maybe I just have blind faith that thinks will turn out ok? It’s a coping mechanism.

We landed and even before people were standing up, I got an email saying our flight was cancelled. So while we were deplaning and I was juggling my baggage, I was also trying to find another flight to rebook before they shut down the other flights to rebook everyone on our flight. While walking, carrying luggage, and trying to pay attention to people, I was also trying to book some online flights for 4 people.

The Chicago airport was of course crazy busy. There was so much going on. Paul wasn’t being helpful so I had to get away from him asking me questions while I was trying to rebook us. I am not good at multi-tasking. It caused tension with all of us tired travelers.

After a couple hours, we rented a car to drive home.  Nothing like a 12 hour car ride after already traveling for almost 12 hours plus or minus the time zone change.

One thing that was touching was the man that helped us get food with our food vouchers. The airline really makes it difficult with these vouchers for the places at the airport to recieve the  voucher. Each one has a 16 digit number, expiration day and cbc code that needs to be entered on the credit card machine. Each voucher is worth $15.00 so each of us had to enter 2 vouchers. This man patiently entered in 8 times with 8 different vouchers to pay our bill.  I thanked him for his kindness.

Our rental car associate was a ray of sunshine. She was so helpful and pleasant. We made sure we thanked her for her pleasant personality. We did end up leaving the airport before realizing we didn’t get the proper EZpass equipment that we paid for, so we had to stop at each toll and pay the toll. What a pain that was. 

We found up that when we return the car in Buffalo (our car is there) that we have to go in to try to get reimbursed. So that will be another delay. We also have to find where in the world Julie’s checked bag is. Probably with Carmen Sandiego.

Assessing the situation….here are the bright sides. We made it to the airport without hitting any wildlife.  We safely arrived in Chicago and were able to be able to charge a rental car on our credit card without having them maxed out (some people may not have been able to do that). Another thing is that we are physically able to withstand this drive after 12 hours of travel already. 

This also happened at the end of our trip which is far better than missing a day of our trip.  The travel time forced me to catch up on several weeks of emails for work. 

We rolled into Buffalo for a quick nap and will journey home tomorrow. I haven’t pulled a 24 hour stunt like this in a while!

We stopped at a rest area and saw this guy stuck to a pole. So we posed with him for a quick pic. Avery also found silly stickers on the mirrors of the ladies room. It made us laugh.