Needed to get up to ORD to my house for my monthly "everything in order" visit, together with the 15th b'day of my next door neighbor. 14 day APEX ATLORD is MUCH cheaper than TPAORD (yess!) so this time I book CO in order to fly on one of the EMB145s. Do it on the net (that day UA was down, otherwise I probably would not have gone on CO).

My NW Silver Elite should get me into 1c, if available--forget to call at 12M, so call Friday AM to CO. They say, call NW. I call NW, which says "you need certificates". My response is "I don't think so, not on CO". At any rate, the link from NW to CO was down, so I call CO, which grudgingly gives me 2A.

MARTA to ATL, to a gigantic line at CO (shades of last Sat. to LGA). Turns out a flight to IAH AND a flight to EWR were xld. What a mess. All I needed was to check in for a flight through CLE!

Get on the 1c line, and wait behind 5 people for about 15 mins, then decide to use the E-ticket electronic machine. It works beautifully, but what about the bags. I walk outside (in the 93 degree heat), and the skycap says "if you already checked in with the machine inside, I can't do anything with you out here--it sez that you're already in the system. Back inside, (to my identical position in the 1c line), only about 1/2 hr before flight time. A ticket agent comes out and asks the eco line "anyone to Cleveland, step out to get checked in". I interrupt him and say "all I need to do is get rid of luggage.". He helps me quickly and sends me on the way.

At gate, I ask if they need volunteers, and am told "no"--turns out the flt was only about 3/4 full--both coach and 1c (an employee and her son were seated directly behind in 1c). Apparently they didn't/couldn't rebook people onto this flight. Strange...)

Anyway, extremely pleasant flight--excellent f/a, cold shrimp/pasta salad with excellent cocktail sauce. I may become a convert to CO, especially since I'm nearly at 50K on UA for the year.

CLE is an interesting airport--kind of had hub status thrust upon it. We get in a few mins early into Concourse C, and my flt to ORD leaves from Concourse A--apparently a penalty-box for the RJs. So I start hoofing it, to see that the gate for my flt changed to D--their new commuter concourse. Also seems to be really logically laid out--the Beech 1900 flights are in one corner, the Brasilias are in the other corner, and the RJs are on the wall opposite. They have a tunnel over to the concourse--bright, cheery and new. Only problem is, there are no newspapers or shops there open past 8 pm. Back to concourse C, to find only one shop there open (way up near the terminal). They really seem to "roll up the sidewalks" after 8.

RJ is nice--we have a 35 min gate hold, but boy is it looooong. Nice leather seats, I'm in 2d to last row on the left (one seat) side. (I still think I prefer the CRJ).

Anyway, we pull up to the gate at ORD and see a CO RJ (the 715 flt from CLE that took off right before us after a 3 hour delay)and a UA RJ at the gate. We circle back and wait for about 15 minutes until the UA plane leaves (the gate seems to be a common use gat at the end of the finger). Luggage there when I get there.

Return will be a 737 from ORD, connecting to another RJ to ATL