Long Drive

My schedule has been turned upside down over the past few weeks and instead of being in Boca Raton, Florida, I am in Decatur, Illinois. It was easier to rent a car and drive six hours than to fly with connections in either Detroit or Atlanta and a 2 hour drive after I landed in Peoria. It's a pretty east drive across Missouri on Hwy 36. Not much traffic and four lanes all the way.

I stayed in Decatur and drove into Sullivan this morning. It's a small rural town of around 4,000 people with a large retirement community where I am providing two days of education to about 150 people. Tomorrow night I drive to Peoria and repeat the process there, and home on Thursday night.

The area is very pretty. Lots of tall golden brown corn. I have seen two fields where they are already picking the corn. The best field was the field of Sunflowers.....as far as the eye could see. Great big yellow/orange flowers with dark brown centers. The GPS took me to Sullivan on back roads, but returned me to Decatur on highways, so I didn't go back past the field. If I go back by the sunflowers tomorrow morning, I will have to stop and take some pictures.

Argentine, Michigan

This week I am in a rural area of central Michigan. The second leg of the flight was 15 minutes from take off to touch down on a propeller plane (Detroit to Flint, Michigan). I hadn't been on a propeller plane since I quit flying to Garden City, Kansas and had forgotten how LOUD they are. The best part of the day was landing in 72 degree weather after leaving 95 degrees and 100% humidity.

This is a beautiful area with multiple large lakes and farms. The homes and yards are lovely and the fields lush. On the other hand, there are many vacant business buildings and empty car dealerships. After all, this is Michigan where the ecomony and employment opportunities have suffered.

I'm here until Thursday afternoon, then home to KC to sleep and drive to Des Moines on Friday.

Getting Old

When I started this traveling stint, I carried my luggage on rather than checking. Used a back pack so I was only dragging one item on and off escalators, parked in Economy Parking and shelped my own bags off and on the shuttles. Times have changed.

First I will confess about my only phobia. I have a fear of DOWN ESCALATORS. I believe it is deep seated and has its roots in the Sears building at 22nd and Mitchell in St. Joe. That was the first escalator in St. Joe. I can still remember Mom trying to get me on the down escalator there. I was terrified, missed the step and fell. To this day I enter the down escalator with trepidation. My criteria is that I must be able to place my left hand on the hand rail. I will stop before I get to the entrance to rearrange my pull luggage, book, bottle of water or what ever, so my left hand will be free to engage with the railing. If I have two pull luggage pieces, I take the elevator as there is no way I can step on the the escalator without touching the handrail. This is why I quit using my rolling briefcase and started using a computer back pack. It kept one hand free while I pulled my suitcase, which I carried on.

In June I needed to take a large suitcase which had to be checked, so I converted to the rolling briefcase and have never looked back. I now check my luggage and enjoy the freedom of not dragging all my stuff with me. Only once (last week) has this created a problem, and then I was on the return leg, so it wasn't too inconvenient that my luggage was delayed. Granted, it requires a wait at the airport for the luggage to be unloaded. I can live with that wait.

For several months Charlie has taken me to the airport and picked me up, thus I haven't been leaving my car and using shuttles. This week he was headed to North Dakota, so I was on my own with transportation to and from the airport. On the way there I was thinking about long term parking and just couldn't make myself go to Economy Parking and drag my luggage around. I went to The Parking Spot, where the shuttle comes to my car, I pop the trunk, and the nice driver retrieves my luggage and places it on the shuttle. So it costs a little more, I deserve it!!

Oklahoma City

Yesterday I was able to visit the Memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing. It is beautiful, inspiring, sad, gut wrenching and additional adjectives I haven't been able to identify.

I wandered the Memorial and toured the Museum. The room dedicated to the victims has memorial boxes with pictures and items donataed by the familes which reflect to individual. Again, the adjective to descibe the room and the emotions has yet to be created.

Stormy Weather

What at ending to my week!!

I had a non-stop flight from Detroit home yesterday afternoon and was to arrive at 6:30 PM (Central Time). About the time I stopped to fill the car up before returning it, my phone rang and it was Delta telling me that my flight was going to be delayed an hour. Okay.

I turned the car in and arrived at the airport and went to find a glass of wine. I had a nice chat with a lady who missed her 3 PM connection by 15 minutes. The next flight was leaving at 9:30. Made me feel lucky! We discussed books. I'm reading an Abigail Adams biography. She was reading one of those "The girl who....." books. (Aren't you impressed that I actually TALKED to someone at the airport?)

I reached the gait at 5:45. No plane was visible. The minutes ticked by.....no plane was visible. It was becoming pretty obvious that we were NOT leaving at 6:30 (Eastern) The plane finally arrived a little before 7:00 and we were boarded and taking off around 7:30 (Eastern). So I'll get home between 8 and 8:30. Okay.

I'm reading Abigial Adams and dozing. I made a peanut better sandwich with the sandwich thins and little cup of peanut butter I had in my purse and had a snack with my Diet Coke. Then dozed and read some more. I noticed the flight was getting rather bumpy and recalled that Charlie had told me Kansas City was supposed to get some 'weather'. It seemed like we started to descend, then went back up a couple of times. I figured the pilot was looking for a smoother ride. Then he came on the PA and announced the airport in Kansas City was closed due to weather and we were going to circle around for awhile until the weather cleared. Okay.

So I'm reading and dozing and 10 minutes or so later, he comes back on the PA and says we are going to Omaha to re-fuel and wait out the storm. Okay.

When we landed in Omaha, I checked the radar on my cell phone and was actually a little sad that I missed the storm. I looked like a doozy!! We were ninth in line to re-fuel. I heard later they sent some planes to St. Louis to re-fuel. We took off back to Kansas City around 9:45 PM. The pilot told us the KC airport was again open, but that they had several planes in the sky and were working to get them down. We would have a leisurely flight as we would have to land to according to how they would sequence us. Okay.

We landed without incident, but I saw some awesome lightening during the flight. We landed around 10:30 PM--4 hours late--not bad considering.

The next issue was luggage. Four flights had landed within minutes of each other and multitudes of people were around the luggage carousel. Slowly bags came out and people picked them up and headed out into the night. But not mine. When I was the last person standing, I went to the office and asked if all the luggage had been unloaded, as all the people were gone! She checked my ticket and discovered my suitcase had been loaded in Detroit and then taken back off the flight. Okay.

She completed whatever computer stuff needed to be done and said it would be delivered to my house once it finally reached Kansas City and gave me a locater number. This morning I checked and it had been found in Detroit and was being put on a flight to Kansas City. By 10 o'clock it was in Kansas City and with the delivery person. It arrived at my house at 3:30 this afternoon, so all is well.

And wasn't I just commenting that I hadn't had any travel issues for quite some time........

Loosing Cabin Pressure

I finally have an exciting TRAVEL story. I haven't had a canceled flight for any reason for over a year. Some delayed, some shortened time frames to catch connections, and some irritating experiences at the ticket counter, but no cancellations.

Yesterday I was flying Delta from Kansas City to Detroit, non-stop. I left at 1:30 and the flight was about 1 1/2 hours. We left pretty much on time. I was reading and dozing and the chimes sounded that we were above 10,000 feet. The PA system clicked on and I expected the flight attendant to come on and tell us we could now turn on our electronic devices. Instead, it was the pilot telling us that we had suddenly lost cabin pressure and were returning to Kansas City. I look up to see if those yellow things had dropped from the ceiling. I thought they were released when cabin pressure was lost, but we were not high enough to need supplemental oxygen. I wondered if I should be worried, but we didn't seem to be having problems, so I kept reading. I will admit that I was quite happy when the wheels touched down in Kansas City.

We sat for a while, then were told the problem was going to take quite some time and we were to deplane and go back out to ticketing to re-book. It is now about 2:50. My choices were:

1. Take a 3:10 flight from Kansas City to Atlanta. Leave Atlanta 7 something to Detroit and arrive in Detroit at 11:45,
2. Take a 5 pm flight from Kansas City to Minneapolis then to Detroit and arrive at 10:45, or
3. Go home and take a 6:15 AM flight this morning (Wednesday) non-stop to Detroit, arriving at 9:20.

I chose to go home and take the 6:15 AM flight. I was supposed to be at the facility in Monroe (which is about 30 minutes south of the airport) by 9 AM. I figured if I landed at 9:20, I could be at the facility by 11 AM, which would be better than traveling for 14 hours. I slept great, just not long enough and this morning everything went quite well. We are about an hour and a half behind on the agenda for the two day training course, but I usually get done about 3 on the second day, so I figure we can make it up in the morning and still get done on time.

I stayed late this evening to audit charts and make up the 2 hours I was late. Tomorrow I may explore. I think I'm pretty closes to Lake Erie.

Home

I requested a 'wake up' call for 4 AM and was actually awake about 20 minutes before the phone rang. The last flight out of Kallispel, Montana is early afternoon so I end up staying until the next day.

I have never been here in the middle of summer and was amazed at the number of passengers who were in line to leave at 5AM. We left on time, but were about a hour and a half late leaving Salt Lake City.

Have had a good evening at home. I needed to sort and get rid of a variety of "STUFF"!!!!!!

I was notified this afternoon that I will be required to spend one week every month in Florida. That will be a GOOD thing in the winter. In the summer I will just plan to stay inside.

I Saw a Bear

The weather in Montana is wonderful-----mid seventies.

Last night I after I finished up at the nursing home, I headed to Glacier National Park and drove the Going to the Sun Road from the west entrance to Logan Pass (which is at the continental divide) and back. I wanted to go all the way across, but I didn't really have enough time. It was rather rainy and overcast on the way up, but cleared off on the way down. The mountains are breathtaking. I saw some wild goats at Logan Pass and got a picture of a couple of them in the parking lot! Back at the bottom, I saw a bear! He was crossing the road. I was so surprised I didn't even think about trying to get a picture.

The road is well maintained and the lane next to the drop off has an edging of rocks most of the time. I was a little nervous starting out, as I remember well the back road into Aspen, Colorado. I didn't have to drive then, Ann did, so I was able to keep my eyes shut for the scary parts. This road didn't have any parts where I wanted to keep my eyes shut. Of course, that may have been because I was so focused on the road, I didn't have time to look down to see how close I was to falling off the edge of the world.

I head back to the furnace in Missouri tomorrow morning at 6 AM. Think I'll try to get a nice walk in tonight.

Where are you?

Okay.

All you people who complain about my lack of postings........Where are your comments?