Twelve Hours at O’Hare: Why I Prefer the Back Roads

Twelve Hours at O’Hare: Why I Prefer the Back Roads

By:  a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures

Dear Henry,

I took a break from this website update work and writing to travel back to Roanoke for an event. My favorite side project, The Friends of Old Lick, was appearing at the Gainsboro Block Party, and I wanted to be there to help out. I also wanted to see my youngest son, who is still living in our home there.

At first, I planned to make this a road trip: three slow days wandering through Missouri, Kentucky, and West Virginia on the way east, a few days in Roanoke, and then another meandering return through Southwest Virginia, Tennessee, and Southeast Arkansas. That had been the plan anyway.

At the last minute, Fish and I decided it would probably be wiser for me to fly.

Like many people with neurological and orthopedic issues, flying is physically difficult for me. Rapid changes in atmospheric pressure are hard on the joints. I struggle with ear regulation, and I am extremely prone to airsickness. However, I’m still trying to adapt to the changes Graves’ disease has caused. And lately, fatigue has become very real. Add muscle wasting issues that I am still trying to get addressed, and suddenly the idea of seven days driving alone across the country felt less adventurous and more unwise.

So instead, I booked a strange little collection of last-minute flights: inbound to Roanoke through Philadelphia, an airport and city I had never experienced before, and outbound through Chicago O’Hare, an airport I know entirely too well and generally try very hard to avoid.

In hindsight, we are not entirely sure this was the better decision.

To help with the ear pressure problems, I invested in a product called EarPlanes. They did, in fact, help with the ear pressure. Unfortunately, they also turned the flight from Philadelphia to Roanoke into one of the most violently airsick experiences of my life.

It was awful. I ruined everyone’s evening.

Later, after I recovered enough dignity to Google the issue, I discovered that while the product descriptions rarely mention it, many people prone to motion sickness have had the same experience. Apparently, changing the pressure dynamics in your ears can also make your brain completely lose negotiations with the rest of your body.

Needless to say, I did not use the EarPlanes on the trip home. However, the return trip was when things became truly memorable.

I left Roanoke bright and early Monday morning, and our pilot managed to get us into O’Hare nearly an hour ahead of schedule. He was clearly trying to outrun “the storm,” which was slowly marching toward Chicago from the west.

That storm would become the bane of my existence for the next twelve hours.

On May 18, 2026, a line of severe thunderstorms rolled into the Midwest and effectively grounded traffic in and out of O’Hare. Somewhere around eighty thousand tired, frustrated travelers found themselves trapped inside one giant fluorescent-lit holding pen, all staring hopefully at departure boards that changed every fifteen minutes.

Delayed. Boarding soon. Awaiting aircraft. Canceled.

Then somehow delayed again.

It became a strange little cycle of hope and disappointment repeated over and over throughout the afternoon. Customer service agents kept assuring everyone that yes, really, this time the plane would make it out. Small crowds would gather around gates every time the weather radar showed a break in the clouds, only to slump back into exhaustion when another lightning warning appeared.

Somewhere around 2 p.m., my suitcase successfully escaped Chicago without me. I, however, did not manage to find an open seat until nearly 6 p.m.

By that point, the airport no longer felt like a transportation hub. It felt like a temporary refugee camp made of rolling suitcases, fast food wrappers, dead phone batteries, and exhausted people sleeping against walls. At moments, it felt oddly reminiscent of Station Eleven.

Ironically, despite the heavy turbulence later that night, I had absolutely no airsickness problems on the flight home. Apparently, the EarPlanes had been the true villain all along.

By the time I finally made it back to Northwest Arkansas, I had spent nearly fourteen hours traveling in a single day, the exact kind of exhausting, over-scheduled experience Fish and I had hoped to avoid by flying in the first place.

And sitting there in O’Hare, surrounded by noise, delays, crowds, fluorescent lights, and thousands upon thousands of irritated travelers, I was reminded once again why I love slow travel so much.

There is something profoundly unnatural about modern air travel. We were never really meant to move this quickly, in giant metal tubes, from one side of the country to another while living entirely by departure boards, weather patterns, and gate changes.

The back roads ask something different of you. They ask you to slow down. To notice the small towns. To stop at roadside diners. To pull over when you see an old church or a forgotten cemetery or a mountain overlook, catching the evening light just right.

Back roads travel may take longer, but somehow it feels more human.

And after twelve hours trapped inside O’Hare Airport, I found myself longing for something simple and human again: quiet roads, open skies, and the freedom to wander at my own pace.

xoxo a.d. elliott

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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life

She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.

You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.

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