Unfortunately, no first class upgrade this time, but it didn’t really matter – I’m thin and flexible enough that I can actually get decently comfortable in regular economy seating. But, what else was unfortunate that didn’t quite fall under the “didn’t really matter” category was the fact that we couldn’t fly through the storms in Illinois.

One amazing thing about me living in California now is that there are barely any poor weather conditions. Now, of course, when it does end up raining, everyone drives at 50% of the speed limit because apparently they’re terrified that their cars’ anti-lock braking systems will all fail, but that happens very rarely. Illinois, on the other hand, has storms all the time.

Our pilot wanted to avoid going through high winds, so we ended up going around the storm.

Literally.

Notice how I was flying from Los Angeles International Airport, which is in southern California, but somehow approached Chicago from Wisconsin … yes, we literally had to go that far out of our way to avoid storms.