Planes, Trains, and lost luggage...

Everyone has their nightmare travel stories, i bet you mine trumps most of yours. Delays are usually the bad part of people's trips, a delay would have been a welcome change in mine. Because honestly you are better off not having taken off at all, then to get in the air and not be sure whether or not you will be able to land, but lets start at the beginning...
It's my senior year, on my way to New York, the place I have always wanted to visit, i have my tickets, now all I have to do is get there. On Saturday I started my day by going to my day by speeching at the state speech competition. Of course it was all the way in Glenwood (for the geographically challenged like myself that's about 2 hours away) so after my speech we had to race home get my dad then get to Des Moines to the airport. Everything started out fine we got our tickets, waited at the terminal, we even saw my aunt, uncle, and cousin waiting for their plane to Chicago. They had horrible delays and were pretty ticked about that, Chicago, the windy city, seemed to be living up to it's name. My flight was on time so we were set. So we got on the plane and headed for Milwaukee.
That plane trip was fine. We started out alittle later than we were supossed to but we made up some time in the air (isn't that called speeding?). But we made it to the milwaukee airport without out too much of a problem. Once in the airport we found that we were delayed 2 hours. This was alright because it gave us time for a little dinner. (mmm... airport food) But after dinner we got back to the terminal and sat for awhile. We actually started boarding the plane a little earliar than the delay said. While we were boarding i heard some one say something about a storm in new york, The thought running through my head went something like this "Ha at least we will be on our way before they start canceling flights." And so we boarded.
The trip was pretty good while we were in the air. Our biggest complaint was that this man beside us really liked to talk. He was from New York and when he found out we were from Iowa all he wanted to talk about were the Corn Huskers (Oh Cause everyone in the midwest shares one team, obviously.) but other than the distraction from studying my lines It was a good trip.... Until we got closer to New york City that is. As we got closer we felt the turbulance. the captain came over the intercom and said something along the lines of "okay folks"(cause i'm pretty sure they are taught to use the word "folks" in flying school) " we are going to be doing a special landing today, it's really windy at Laguardia so we are going to be relying heavily on our breaks to get stopped" In simpler words "this landing is going to be bumpy. As we began our decent It seemed to take forever to get through the clouds When we finally got through them I saw the lights I also saw that we were getting closer to the ground. I was so excited to almost be in NYC! There was a bit of turbulance but nothing to horrible. We got closer and closer then all of the sudden the engines roared and we started going up. The captain came over the intercom again and explained that it was so windy he couldnt land just then. He told us we would circle the city then try it again. We did. And again as we got closer and closer to the ground I heard the same roar of the engine. Once we got up to a good altitude again the intercom came on and "Well Folks thats enough for me! We are heading to Albany. "(once again for the geographically challeged that is 100 miles north of NYC) So we headed to albany. The best way to describe that trip is to compare it to the movie "Airplane" Yah believe it or not their interpretation of bad turbulance isnt that far from the truth. And to make a great trip even better. People behind us began filling up the little white bags from the seatback pockets with their lunch. It was GROSS!
Once in albany we finally did get to expierience that rough landing. Even better was once we got on the ground we got to sit on the plane smelling the disinfectant for, oh idk TWO HOURS! When the finally got us out of the plane It was 3 am. We were all tired and glad to be alive as the led us to the baggage claim. Once we were through the security cheak point we got another surprise. SORRY FOLKS NO LUGAGE! So then we were sent to a hotel to sleep, the next day we were to get back on that same plane and try the trip over again. Needless to say my mom and I took the amtrack. Doing this we didnt get our bags until tuesday night(good excuse to go shopping). After this fiasco the trip was awesome and I can wait to visit new york again (maybe I'll drive next time) Also we got a free round trip flight to anywhere in the country... woo hoo can't wait to get back on an airplane... not.