Welcome to the St. Croix Lutheran China Trip Wiki. I will be posting updates on here throughout our trip.
Scott Sievert
July 13 - Flight to Beijing
After many pictures and hugs at the airport we made our way through security and on to the plane for what we thought would be a quick 50 minute flight to O'Hare. While we were waiting to take off we found out that an FAA air traffic control facility had to be evacuated because of a fire alarm which delayed incoming and outgoing flights to O'Hare. After sitting on on the Minneapolis runway for an hour we finally were off but were now worried that we might miss our plane to Beijing. We touched down in Chicago with 10 minutes to taxi to the gate, deplane, and get from one end of the airport to the other. By the time we finally got off the plane the ten minutes had passed. We asked the American Airlines gate attendant to call to the next gate to see if they could hold it for us but he told me there was no way to do that. So we started running, and kept running and kept running. Thankfully we had one of St. Croix's track state finalist, Joe Werz, with us. He got to the gate in time and alerted them that 17 other passengers were coming. We made it on the flight, were all sitting in 4 rows and settled in for the 13 hour trip. We were about an hour behind schedule when we were finally cleared for take off but were grateful to be on that flight and excited to get to China.
Choose the next day you would like to read about from the right hand side or go in order by clicking the link below.
Next: Day 1
Scott Sievert
July 13 - Flight to Beijing
After many pictures and hugs at the airport we made our way through security and on to the plane for what we thought would be a quick 50 minute flight to O'Hare. While we were waiting to take off we found out that an FAA air traffic control facility had to be evacuated because of a fire alarm which delayed incoming and outgoing flights to O'Hare. After sitting on on the Minneapolis runway for an hour we finally were off but were now worried that we might miss our plane to Beijing. We touched down in Chicago with 10 minutes to taxi to the gate, deplane, and get from one end of the airport to the other. By the time we finally got off the plane the ten minutes had passed. We asked the American Airlines gate attendant to call to the next gate to see if they could hold it for us but he told me there was no way to do that. So we started running, and kept running and kept running. Thankfully we had one of St. Croix's track state finalist, Joe Werz, with us. He got to the gate in time and alerted them that 17 other passengers were coming. We made it on the flight, were all sitting in 4 rows and settled in for the 13 hour trip. We were about an hour behind schedule when we were finally cleared for take off but were grateful to be on that flight and excited to get to China.
Choose the next day you would like to read about from the right hand side or go in order by clicking the link below.
Next: Day 1