I am going to start with the worst: O’Hare. It was about 9:00pm when we became stuck as they canceled our connecting flight to our final destination. Absolutely nothing was open at the airport. We were having to wait about nine hours until our rescheduled flight. We had no food or drink. Found a water fountain and it was out of service. So was the next one. This was pre-COVID so it was not a fear of germs. It was like a ghost town in that terminal. We flagged down a janitor to ask if there was anything open anywhere in the airport. He checked his watch and said that everything should be shut down.
It was the most surreal experience of my life. A whole plane’s worth of people waiting for an entire shift and nothing was open anywhere. Since then I have never allowed us to be scheduled with a layover there. I avoid it at all costs.
Now for the fun bit. PDX is an amazing airport. Out of all the airports I have used, this one has nice shops and restaurants. When we fly out of there, we do not mind getting there a couple hours early as we stop and eat and do a little shopping. I think the only chain restaurant I have patronized is Jamba Juice because the kids wanted a smoothie. Even if we are going or leaving it at weird hours of the night, there is always a shop open in each shopping area. We have been able to get some caffeine before getting on the plane or in the rental car. We also do not have to go on another several hour long connection to get to the rental place. It all moves fairly quickly. Not sure if they just all pay for more shuttles or what, but we have never had to wait long to keep going on our way.
Mother of Trauma 
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