By JOHN CURRAN (AP) – 2 hours ago
KILLINGTON, Vt. — The Mountain Inn was ready to call it a season. Then came the call from a group of British schoolboys who'd checked out a day earlier after five days on the Killington slopes.
They'd headed home, only to find out after a six-hour bus ride to New York that they wouldn't be flying anywhere, thanks to grounded European air travel in the wake of Iceland's volcanic eruption.
Could they come back to Vermont? Sure, said innkeeper Chirag Patel. He called in two housekeepers, got his mother and father — co-owners of the inn — to come in to make up the beds and prepared for the unexpected return of 66 guests, even though he'd been planned to close the place for a few months Sunday.
At 2 a.m. Sunday, 60 weary teenagers and chaperones from The Judd School checked back into the 50-room Mountain Inn, across the street from Killington ski resort.
"I thought it would be good, I'm going to miss my geography test on Monday," a glum Miles Partridge, 15, said Monday. "Then when I realized it might be a bit longer, I thought I'd rather get back to my family then sort of stay in America."
Still, they were among the lucky ones. While thousands around the globe slept on airport floors or chairs, others got a dose of old-fashioned Yankee hospitality as Americans opened their homes, wallets and businesses to stranded air travelers waiting for Europe's skies to clear.
"The American people have been fantastic to us," said Peter Dayson, who was with a 41-person group of British collegians stranded in Logan, Ohio. "We're very humbled by the way we've been looked after and treated."
In Chicago, a suburban mom put an ad on Craigslist offering free lodging — in her finished attic — to any family stranded by the air travel ban, sympathetic to the strain it would be on their budget.
"We would benefit more than they would by getting a chance to meet a family," said Michelle Dolan, 40, of Park Ridge, Ill., a mother of three whose home is a 15-minute ride from O'Hare International Airport, where there were dozens of cancellations Monday. "I would almost pay for that experience."
In Newark, N.J., a family of Brits returning from Las Vegas got stranded at Newark Liberty International Airport, where a TV report on their plight drew numerous inquiries. Jeanmarie Keenan, of Scotch Plains, N.J., drove there to find Mick Jordan, wife Jane and 13-year-old son Billy low on cash and eating only one meal a day
Jeanmarie Keenan found her way to them and said, "Are you the Jordan family?" before taking them home with her.
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