On the last day of the 2000 Winter Olympics, I'm flying home from Anchorage, connecting in Salt Lake City (the host city for the Olympics). My Anchorage flight left at 0630, arriving in SLC around 1000, I knew. flight operations for the entire airport were going to be closed during the closing ceremonies, so I knew I would be spending the day and most of the evening in the airport. Bonus: I got to talk to Adam West in the Delta Sky Club or Crown Club, whatever it was then. 2200 rolls around, and we're lining up at the gate for our outbound flight, in my case to Atlanta. Gate agent comes out to tell us that airport security got around to noticing that the metal detectors were unplugged and no one knew how long they had been that way.

The decision was made to "flush" the terminal, with everyone required to go outside and come in again through the security checkpoint. This was especially distressing for me, as not only had I already been in the airport for a long time, but I had gone through security in Anchorage and never left the sterile area in SLC. I and 5,000 or so of my closest friends exited the terminal and went through the metal detectors to get back into the terminal.

By the time I got back to my gate, my flight had departed. The Delta gate agent told me there would be no flight for me until about noon the next day, and there were no hotel rooms to be had because of the Olympics. So, I spent a cold, sleepless night wandering around the SLC terminal. I spent about 26 hours at SLC, and total transit time, ANC-ATL was around 36 hours.