Bleary-eyed premiers tumbled off the plane, arriving in Regina, exhausted, disheveled and wondering what to wear.

The past 24 hours of travel had been an ordeal for everybody. Most eastern premiers, their entourage and the media had to pass through Toronto's Pearson Airport on the way to their annual summer meeting — this time in Regina.

Pearson Airport is where the ordeal began. Thunderstorms and lightning forced dozens of planes to stay put on the tarmac. Most passengers were grounded for more than four hours waiting for the bad weather to clear. Then thousands of cranky customers languished for hours in the airport waiting for their planes to leave. Wait, wait, then wait some more.

Reporters tried to get premiers to reveal all the info about the meeting as they stood about trying to decide if there was enough time to go to the Maple Leaf Lounge. There would be hours and hours to kill — more than nine hours before the plane carrying the premiers would leave Toronto for Regina.

Then to add insult to injury the luggage was nowhere to be found when the plane finally landed in Regina about 12 hours later than scheduled. So premiers lined up with everybody else to make their luggage claim, hopeful they would see their clothes in the near future.

New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham was congratulating himself for having the foresight to wear a suit. Newly minted Premier of Nova Scotia Darrel Dexter wondered how he would make his grand entrance at his first premiers meeting in jeans and sneakers.

"My day began with a car ride from Montreal," said Dexter. "So this is what I wore."

Ontario's Dalton McGuinty joked that he'd see everyone at the first briefing in a couple of hours. But everyone skedaddled to their hotels to try and snooze for a couple of hours. As for the lack of sleep-the best prepared was Robert Ghiz. He and his wife have a new baby. One-month-old Julia. So he's used to functioning on no shut-eye.

— Julie Van Dusen