We all have nightmare travel stories.

Mine could have been the time my flight to Las Vegas on America West Airlines was cancelled because the plane broke. That cost me a day of my vacation. Then the return flight from Las Vegas was cancelled because the plane broke. That got me back the day.

Flying on broken planes is alarming, though.

But broken planes are nothing compared to returning from London on the now-defunct airline, TWA.

Thunderstorms over St. Louis, one of TWA’s hubs at the time, forced us to reroute to Chicago. We landed at O’Hare International Airport at 5:04 p.m., expecting to be able to deplane and wait in the terminal for the weather to clear in St. Louis.

Instead, we halted short of the gate.

Since we were an international flight, we would have to go through customs to deplane. We were told that the customs workers in Chicago were unwilling to stick around past their scheduled departure time.

I’ve always been skeptical of that claim. But whether through logistics, regulations or the desire to get home for dinner, we sat on the plane. And sat on the plane some more. For eight hours we sat on the plane.

It took them a full two hours to hook up an auxiliary power unit so that we could have air conditioning. Prior to that, the interior of the plane got very hot and very smelly. There was no food service, no beverage service and long lines for the lavatories, which had a foul odor.

Sometime after 1 a.m., we took off for St. Louis. They allowed us to deplane and pass through customs.

Upon arrival, we learned that the thunderstorms had cancelled everything. As a result, all nearby hotel rooms were full. Worse, the airline was out of blankets and the terminal was frigid.

After wandering around, shivering the whole time, a few of us took a taxi to a 24-hour Denny’s restaurant. The staff there was kind enough to let us stay for a few hours while we enjoyed some food and a warm place.

We went back to the airport around 7 a.m. and learned that we would have to gate hop in hopes of getting on a flight as a standby. Since hundreds were doing the same thing, we hopped to a lot of gates.

After 12 hours, we finally got seats on a flight to Denver. By this time, most of us had been awake for more than 36 hours.

So that’s my tale. What’s yours? If I get a few, we’ll compile them into a file on the website.

After all, misery loves company.