Wow, what a trip so far. I went online about 7PM on Monday to check the status of my 11PM United Airlines Maui-to-San Francisco flight, and found that it was going to be delayed four hours. The kind United customer service agent I talked to on the phone sensed that there might be further delays, which would cause me to miss my connecting flight to London. He got me one of the last seats on a Maui-to-LA flight, which left a half hour sooner, and got me on a connecting flight to S.F from there. Both of those went smoothly, and I arrived in S.F. with plenty of time to make my connecting flight to London. That change was fortuitous – when I arrived in S.F. I found out that my original flight was delayed several more hours, and would have arrived in S.F. several hours after my London flight left.
All three flights were uneventful, and I survived the London underground tunnels as well. I got a bit confused upon reaching King’s Cross and locating the appropriate location to connect through to Sheffield, but that was short-lived. I’m on the Midlands train traveling north to Sheffield as I write this. It’s 9:30 AM Wednesday morning here, which means I’ve been traveling or waiting for connections for about 24 hours straight, and should be arriving in my final destination in about 2 hours. The conference opening is in the mid-afternoon, so I might actually get some shut-eye before it does open.