We were on a UA flight from SYD to LAX on Sept 11th. We landed in LAX about ten minutes after the first plane hit the WTC. Knew nothing. After exiting customs, we switched terminals, so we could catch our UA LAX - ORD flight. While in the main lobby, they came on the loudspeakers, and announced that the terminal was being evacuated, and had people hustling my family out to the curb. After calling my father, I learned about the WTC, and hearing that LAX was a rumored target, decided to get out of there. So we immediately jumped on a Hertz bus to get a car. I figured that they would run out of cars quickly. And they did, but we got a SUV. We stuck around for a few days in LA hoping that flights would start up again, but eventually Thurs morning drove towards Chicago. Straight thru for 20 hours, and got to Denver by Friday morning at 5 am. Got to the ticket lobby and saw chaos, and incredible lines of hundreds of people. But thankfully my PremExec status let me use the practically empty 1st class line. I got the three of us on the standby list for the first flight that left DEN-ORD, and amazingly, due to the lines in the lobby, we not only got on that flight, but it left half empty. Got home to a completely empty O'Hare, which was strange. I think we were one of the first 5 planes to get into O'Hare post-9/11.