Blogging the NFL. We arrive

Well Saturday was a trip. At O'Hare we got in an airplane traffic jam, 45 minutes on the runway before we took off. How much can you do in an airplane, inching down the runway? Well, let's see: sit and talk, take a nap (yep we're still there), read? How about listening to cheesy soft "jazz" on XM Radio? Did all that, none of it really helped.

Arrival at Dallas was odd. Here it was Saturday night at a major airport andnot even 9 and they were alrelady rolling up the sidewalks. Last time I saw a place so deserted, with that curious ambient neon-lit ennui and its purposeless muzak was in rural Nevada. About 3 am as I recall.

Oh, and the baggage was late.

Finally made it to the rental site -- away from the terminals. Interesting "just go ahead and pick out your car..." That easy. We tried several. Sure the Jeep looked nice, but it could only hold everything if the luggage sat on our laps. So we settled on the Trailblazer. Enough room for the luggage (barely -- did we really bring that much?) and enough for the tall people among us.

Got to the airport just before the rain hit. Now there was a thunderstorm for you, all lightning, and hard hard rain. a tornado too, we heard, but that's another matter.

It being 10:30 pm by now, everybody else stayed in, I went out in the driving rain looking for Chili's. At dark, in the wet, the entire landscape was confusing, but did begin to orient our hotel relative to the area offerings. More on that next.