update

i am only a day into my travels but it has been a bumpy start. we arrive at dwt with time to spare. in typical fashion, checking the baggage was a huge ordeal. they lost our bag right at the counter! after taking a few seconds, we asked to the clerk to go to search the baggage area. he was reluctant but mentioning our volunteer work did the trick. with the four bags found we headed for security check for our 5.30 flight - no probs. at the gate we found out that the scheduled 1pm flight had just returned to the gate. next announcement 3pm flight to o'hare canceled. o'hare was fogged in with 16th of a mile visibility - hundreds of flights canceled:

http://www.nbc5.com/news/15212586/detail.html

lucky for us we had the right plane with the right pilot - an advanced navigational system and an experienced pilot.