An American in Provence

(yeah, I know I look either drugged or drunk in the picture above. That is the point- proof of what 24 hours of travel plus no toiletries can do to you. Alain seems to look okay though.)
Alain and I managed to survive our trip to the North Pole. I mean, Colorado. We left here on December 21st and flew to Brussels, and after two hours of being poked and prodded and standing in line, got on our flight to Chicago. Once there, we went through customs, me through American Nationals, he through the Visitors line. I asked the American side if next time he could go through with me, and they said yes. Whereas the Visitors line also told him that next time I need to go through that line with him. Which is it people?
We went through customs, and got ready to catch our flight to Denver, when we were informed that the entire airport was closed because of a blizzard. I had known that it was snowing, but we didn't know that the airport was closed. We had even asked specifically in Brussels the status, and they said we would have to check in Chicago and happily put us on the plane ("whew! no longer our problem"). The Colorado Springs airport still had a few flights, so we tried to get on one of those Thurs. night, but then they canceled it.
Luckily, my cousin Paul and his wife Jen live in Chicago. We were able to take the metro to their apartment and spend the night with them. It was good because Alain had not met either of them and we had not seen their new apartment. So we went, sans luggage (it was something like a two hour wait to just get your luggage back). It was nice seeing them. The next morning we explored other options of getting to Colorado, to include renting a car, taking a train, or a bus. Because of the holiday season all options were either fully booked or really expensive. For lunch, Paul, Jen, my aunt Gretchen and Uncle Tom, and we went for real Chicago pizza. Then they took us to the airport. We were on standby for a flight to Colorado Springs. We were very anxious and afraid that we were not going to get on or only one of us would. It turned out that they had ten empty seats, so we made it. I don't know why the huge standby lists for Denver didn't try to go to C Springs instead, but I am glad they didn't because it meant we were able to get on. We got to C Springs (which was actually a better choice than Denver from the beginning but normally more expensive, so that is why we had chosen Denver). Even our luggage made it! Wow. So we made it, only one day later than planned. We were not able to go up to the cabin in the mountains as planned for a few days, but oh well. At that point we were just happy to be there, with our luggage, and before Christmas. Some poor people were stuck and didn't even make it to their destinations until after Christmas.