I once had a 36-hour trip from Trondheim to Tuscon, including cancelled flight, rerouting via Zurich, 4-hour (midlnight to 4am) "layover" in Newark with only one available hotel room (wound up sharing it with two mere acquaintances, one of them then chair of the Nobel Peace Prize committee -- should I have leaked to the papparazzi press that he wears silk pajamas? We probably got about an hour's sleep each on our respective rollaways, then back to the airport early to try to get our now invalid tickets accepted). Another 3 hour delay in Ft. Worth waiting out a thunderstorm (already on the plane ready for takeoff, with only a bag of peanuts each -- luckily I'd bought some giant chocolate bars at the tax free store; the 3 of us split one for lunch). We made it to the conference hotel just in time for me to present my paper, then I stumbled off to bed with still no news of my luggage until the concierge phoned 4 hours later to say that the suitcase had arrived. I never did get my wheel set back, although the airline kept putting me off on the refund saying "We've found it! It's in [fill in random city here]." Finally I said I was giving up on them, had bought a new one, and here was the bill. They paid it.

Ah the joys of travel.