When I was waiting at the Fresno airport, I checked flights from Denver to Indianapolis on my phone and saw a nonstop flight from Denver to Indy which left ten minutes after my connection to Chicago. Sensing an opportunity to eliminate the Chicago leg, as soon as I landed in Denver I asked a nearby gate agent, who referred me to United customer service. Arriving at customer service and seeing several people lined up for the single agent, I gave up on the idea due to the short timeline and went to the gate agent for the Indy flight. He thought he could switch me over, but he'd first have to remove me from the Chicago flight before adding me to the Indy flight. Shortly after removing me from the Chicago flight, he found out that he couldn't make the change after all since my ticket originated from a different airline. Now out of time and no longer having a valid boarding pass, I began running to the gate for the Chicago flight.

Side note: Mile-high Denver is not the best place for people to run through the airport due to the elevation and associated thinner air.

Arriving at the Chicago gate, the boarding area was empty and I was notified that the best they could do was put me on standby while they counted available seats. They came up with three available seats... and there were four people on standby. Fortunately for me, my ticket had a "distressed traveler" code printed on it, so I was suddenly #1 on the standby list and was given a seat. As I walked down the jetway, I saw a large pile of gate-checked luggage. Due to my late arrival, there was no room for my rollerboard suitcase in the overhead bins, so it was tagged and sent to the baggage hold.

Now baggage-less except for my laptop bag, I was off to Chicago.

And ninety minutes after arriving in Chicago, I was off to Indy.

Surprisingly, my bag was one of the first ones on the luggage carousel and I made it to the parking shuttle bus just before it pulled away.

Then to top off my day, traffic was beyond dreadful all the way home.

Travel is an adventure.