What an awesome day!

Southern Illinois University in Carbondale has a career day for aviation students in high school ever spring and fall. I managed to sign up in time to make it on the boarding list for the free 53 minute flight down there. Woke up at 4am and I thought the day was gonna be terrible since it was 40 degrees and raining at the airport but when we got down to Carbondale it was a perfect 80 degrees and sunny. I couldn't believe it! Anway, the flight was sponsored by United Airlines this semester and we managed to get free breakfast and great service on the flight. It's good to see the flight attendents not being on their strict work schedule. They were walking up and down the row and talking to many of the students, parents, and alumni from SIU. When we landed we all got off and took our group picture in front of the A320. Afterwards, we separated off into groups. My group was one of the only groups that managed to go on the Cessna tour flights around campus. All was going well until a rival freshman from Hinsdale Central going on about how I was from Lyons, I hated that. After our flights we went into the hangar, checked out planes that were being worked on and their new glass cockpit Cessnas that just arrived months earlier. We then checked out their simulators room, which was locked the last time I was there. Their sumilator room was decent, they didn't have a all round simulator like what St. Louis had. Then we headed off to lunch where I baught two SIU T-shirts and talked to students from the college.

When we finished eating, we all gathered onto busses and took a 20 minute drive to the campus. We had a question and answer scession with some of the alumni and then toured the campus. There was more student activity than the last trip. Everyone was in the football field for the homecoming game last semester. Then we jumped back onto the buses drove back to the airport, ate pizza, got a United T-shirt and got back onto the plane. We fle back to Chicago which was a bumpy ride all the way back, it felt much like a wooden rollar coaster. It still was cold when we arrived back to Chicago but it wasn't raining. I ended up waiting at baggage claim for a good 10 minutes before I met up with my mom and crashed in the car.

Had a fun day and I hope to be accepted on the flight again this Fall with American Airlines.