red eye sunrise

The great thing about a red eye with a layover at OHare is that you get to watch the sun rise over the Great Plains.

Insert a bit of Star Wars "The Empire Strikes Back" nostalgia to the quiet sun rise over Chicago. Planes were being de-iced. All I could think about was the icy fortress that gets destroyed by the bad guys at the beginning of the second Star Wars flick. The cherry picker looking machines in the lower photo are the de-icers, as far as I can tell.

The silent sunrise over America's Heartland was also partially marred by the incessant CNN news casters who talked about the Chinese toy to date rape drug conversion that was occurring in playrooms across the country.

And then there was the high school girl who was hit by a deer during a cross country race.

The silent sun rose as a well dressed man in his 40s shamelessly checked out a beautiful young woman all curled up on an airport bench drinking coffee. He stared and stared. Strutted and stared. Walked and stared. Talked and stared. And it was 4:40 in the morning.

At the McDonalds in OHare at 3:30, pancakes are popular. As are sausage biscuits with egg. But as the pair of well-to-do baby booming African American couples next to me found out the hard way, you can not find a tooth pick in O Hare airport at that hour.