Traveling Hell

As a last minute kinda thing, not that we ever do things last minute, Ulli and I decided to visit Becky, Kevin, and Riley in South Bend, IN. We got our tickets through Delta and were set to leave the morning of the first of August.
Of course, I was trying to downplay just how excited I was to be going to visit my sister...in trying to keep my cool, I over did it. We were not at the airport two hours early. Instead, we ended up losing a lot of time at the Park 'n Jet and in the security line. I also took us to the wrong gate, so we missed our flight. Grr.
Several hours (seven!) later, we were able to catch a flight to Cincinnati. Once we made it to Cincinnati, we had to catch another flight to Chicago. About the time we were supposed to be boarding, an announcement was made. Our plane was still in Dallas, TX. Another four hours in an airport and we finally got to board our plane to Chicago. We made it to Chicago around 1 am. Needless to say, we couldn't catch any trains to South Bend. At least they put us up in the airport Hilton. We got to stay for about five hours.
We caught the trains and made it to the South Bend Airport, where Beck and Kev picked us up.
The visit was great and we had a lot of fun! Riley is a riot and hella cute! He loves to play and he's just the best puppy ever!
Ulli left on the fifth, cause she had to get to a class that evening and had school stuff at the end of that week as well. She actually made it off without too many problems. The trains were running late, but she still made it in time to get a bite to eat before catching her flight back. She had to leave the airport and head straight to class. She even made it to her class 20 minutes early! She's usually late.
I stayed until the 11th. Yes, Ulli and I managed to survive being apart for six whole days!
My trip to the airport was a good one. My driver (Kevin) was excellent. We made it to the airport without any problems. Traffic wasn't too bad. I'm never living in or near Chicago. Unless I never have to drive anywhere!
The only hitch I ran into was the security check. I took my Wii with me. Kevin is my video game buddy and it's been really hard to play video games when he's living in another state. Well, apparently, the Wii had to be run through the machine a couple of times. One of the TSA women unceremoniously unpacked the Wii and all of the remotes, nunchuks, cords, cd cases (the games), and sensor bar. In any case, I was rather miffed. They ran my backpack through a couple of times too. I had a small bottle of water, but it wasn't small enough. They took it away. I should've asked to drink it before I had to catch my flight.
So, I packed up all of the stuff again. Counting all of the remotes and things and well, I thought I had everything. Yesterday, I finally decided to unpack my Wii. I took some rented games with me. One of the cd cases was, and still is, missing. Of course it has to be the one that carries 4 discs. Grr.
I've called Delta and TSA in Chicago. I called Becky. The cd case is not at their house or in their car. TSA called and said they don't have anything. Figures.
Grr.
At least my flight got in 20 minutes early. But I would rather have had my $200 worth of video games make it with me and just been on time.