Deep Dish Chicago Pizza

What better place to try Chicago-style deep dish pizza than Chicago?

We left our hotel at 7:30 a.m. and realized shortly before boarding our flight to IAD that Kathy had left her outer jacket in the hotel room closet. A quick call to the hotel confirmed that and they'll mail it back to us collect. In the meantime, Kathy probably has the other half of the jacket to keep her warm in Europe. If necessary, we'll buy a "souvenir-of-Frankfurt" sweatshirt.

The 227-mile flight from JFK to IAD went smoothly, even in an Embraer Jet. We had a long layover at Washington-Dulles which turned out to be a little longer than we thought.

We boarded our 767 for Chicago for a 2:30 p.m. departure. Just as a flight attendant was bringing us juice, an announcement directed us to "deplane" and report for the flight an hour later at a gate in another concourse. The explanation was something to do about lacking a First Officer. We retreated to the Red Carpet Club and checked our e-mail before boarding for a 3:30 p.m. departure. Other than that, the trip was fine, but one of those days that we spent a lot more time in airports than we did on the plane.

We met up with a group of 20 or so congenial FlyerTalkers at Giordano's restaurant a few minutes from our hotel. Brian sat next to the free-lance writer who's here on assignment for an article about the Mega DO for Condé Nast Traveler Magazine. We sat across from a fellow who'd just flown in from Munich to take part in this event, and we met folks from different parts of the U.S. and Canada. Oh, and the pizza was interesting and quite delicious.

Tomorrow morning starts early with a 7:30 a.m. event of some sort hosted by United Airlines. We plan to eat an early breakfast and be on a 6:30 a.m. shuttle to the airport for the beginning of what should be both a long and an exciting day.