Some time back, we asked my daughter, "Is it ok if we leave for Denmark on your birthday? If we do, it'll mean you spend it on a plane." She wasn't keen on the idea so we planned a departure date a day early counting on getting to Copenhagen on her birthday. Well, we arrived on her birthday--but not early enough to enjoy it.

On Tuesday, we arrived at Denver International airport in what amounted to sheet rain conditions. We could not see more than two feet in front of us at certain times. Unbeknownst to us, the same (and worse) was happening in Chicago. Planes, at both airports, were grounded and or were being diverted to other airports.

So, we noticed that our flight from Denver to Chicago kept getting later and later. At one point, my wife and I simply looked at each other and said that there was no way we would make our connection in Chicago. We went to customer service where a super lady started working the keyboard--by the time she was done, we were flying to London Heathrow and then from Heathrow to Copenhagen. Instead of being delayed for 24 hours, we were being delayed by about 5 hours.

None too soon, within minutes of our change flights that were diverted started showing up at DIA resulting in an unholy mess at the service desk.

Our flight to LHR ended up being delayed once we were on the tarmac. One of the engines on the 777 wouldn't start so they needed to get a tech out onto the blacktop to do a manual start.

Once in flight, the time from Denver to London was only 8.5 hours. We knew we were going to have roughly a four hour layover in London. We needed to change terminals, which takes quite some time, so we really figured on sitting around for about three hours. By this point we had emailed my Mother's cousin who was picking us up at the airport to let him know we'd be late. However, the plane to Copenhagen was being delayed as well.

We go ourselves a little something to eat. I got a decent cup of coffee and we started the waiting game. My wife and daughter did a little shopping and I popped online for about an hour to check up on the world and knock out a few emails.

Much to my delight, the SAS plane was equipped with cameras to the outside world. You could see what the pilot saw out the front windows for takeoff and then switched the screen over to what was below us after the flight was in the air. The flight from LHR to CPH was short--1.5 hours or so--and we moved from very cloudy and nasty weather to clear skies in Denmark.

The only problem is that we really hadn't had much to eat and by the time we got to CPH, it was about 8 pm local time. Our bags didn't arrive in CPH, but of course we didn't know that until the baggage system indicated all the bags were in. At this point it was about 9 pm local time. After about a half hour in line and another half hour of filling out paperwork, we found out that nobody knew where our bags were. They could be in Denver, Chicago, or London. The computers simply couldn't tell.

We met my Mom and her cousin at the arrivals gate and we started on our way to the hotel that we're staying at for the first few nights were are here. It was about 10 pm but the sun was still up. By about 11 pm, we were settled in our room. All restaurants had closed at about 8 pm and we were pretty hungry. The front desk indicated that there was a 7eleven about 10 minutes away by foot--so off I went and found us chicken samosas and taquitos. Not the greatest dinner, but it did get something in our bellies.

So, here we are. It is coming on about noon local time. I'm up, but my family are still asleep getting over the day and half of travel. Our clothes are hand washed and drying in the bathroom and today we'll need to see about getting some supplies to make sure the rest of our trip is comfortable. As for our bags? No word yet.

So, that is Day 1 on our trek to Denmark.