We went through Chicago on the way to London, and things went pretty smoothly. We were able to have lunch in the airport at the food court while we looked at the scenes of Chicago architecture on the walls. After lunch, we were able to walk right on to our transatlantic flight, which was on a 777 with personal video screens for each passenger.
Manchester airport is much easier to get around in than London Heathrow, but that was tempered somewhat by the fact that we were coming down with bad colds. Poor Tracy was coughing away, and people were giving her dirty looks because this was at the height of the SARS epidemic.
Coming back through Chicago was quite an ordeal. Unlike the trip out, we had to exit security and re-enter to get to the next flight. That meant changing terminals, and boy was it crowded. I thought we would never manage to even get on the shuttle train to take us to the right terminal -- we had to basically shove our way in. Then, once we got to the terminal, we had to wait forever in the security line. Luckily, even though our layover looked ridiculously long on the itinerary, it was just enough time to make it through and onto our flight to San Francisco. The silver lining was that our excellent travel agent had somehow managed to get us seats in Business Class! That was a very nice end to our long voyage.
When we finally arrived back in San Francisco, our friends were there to meet us at the airport, and as we were driving home there was a rainbow in the sky to welcome us home.
Here are some links I collected while I was doing research for the trip.