Angel in a jeep

Flying out of Chicago early Wednesday morning meant driving through dense early morning traffic to O'Hare airport in order to drop off the rental car. Already at 7:15 am traffic was choked up in slow crawling lanes.  I decided to avoid the busiest route and drive a road less traveled across the suburbs to join the expressway south of the airport.  Unfortunately, I chose the wrong road! Even less traveled than I imagined! Approaching the expressway I realized to my horror that there was no access to it as we drove straight under.  Stopping in a garage I asked (trying to keep desperation in check) which way was the quickest to the airport.   A man in the queue told me to keep driving until a main intersection at which I should turn right and keep going.  He gave me little confidence by indicating with his hand that it was left we should turn.  Help!

Traveling to the intersection and turning left (!) we joined an enormously slow moving line of vehicles. One traffic stop after another we began to lose heart after several minutes with no evidence that the airport was any closer.  In the lane next to us was a young man in a jeep.  Carol wound down her window and shouted across: 'Is this the right way to O'Hare?'  'Yes,' he answered. 'How much further? we asked. 'About 5 miles....twenty minutes or so. I am going there, you can follow me!,
'' We are going to return this car to Hertz...do you know where that is?'  'Yes' he said as he moved off and we tried to nose in behind.

Following as close as we dared he led us through a maze of roads and eventually passing under a bridge he waved his arm pointing across the road where we saw the welcome sign: Hertz car returns.  We couldn't believe he had actually led us there.   With whoops of joy Carol almost forgot my catastrophic mistake of choosing the wrong road in the first place.  But what a marvelous act of a stranger....as Carol said:  An angel.   In a jeep!  Sometimes really good things happen, don't they?