Tammi's World

What A Trip!!

Whew. I made it home. And trust me folks, it was not a sure thing.

My trip to DC and the Pentagon was......incredible. I've got some pictures, but honest to goodness, the meat of those will have to wait until tomorrow. But I will say this much. It was one of the best days of my life. Without a doubt.

But tonite, tonite I'm just so glad to be back in The Belfry.

Let me tell you about the travel part of this whole adventure.

It started out Wednesday afternoon when one of the secretaries shows up in my office asking how soon I can be ready to leave.

Seems our flight was delayed. Then canceled and they were booking us on THREE other flights to make sure we got out. We needed to leave NOW.

Got to O'Hare, checked in and waited. Now, the lady I was traveling with isn't as much of a Road Warrior as I am so I was sorta kinda the lead. She just asked that I make sure she's where she needs to be when she needs to be there. I got her all settled in at the gate and......left her there. I needed at least one cigarette cause I knew it was gonna get hectic.

And I had it all planned out. Dash out, smoke, come back through the super secret security line I found and voila. No harm. No foul. And it was all perfect - til I discovered my super secret security line was closed.....

But, I made it back in plenty of time. We finally took off around 8:30 and made it to DC just fine.

Got off the plane and looked for the shuttle to the hotel. Hmmmm. Not arriving for another 30 minutes. Cab.

My partner in crime asked a shuttle driver from another hotel where we needed to grab a cab and he said he'd drop us off. No problem.

Except he dropped us at the wrong hotel. Schleppin' luggage that late at night after a full day was not exactly how I wanted to spend my evening, but hey. You do what ya gotta do.

Up at 5:00am and left for the Pentagon at 6:30. Like I said, a great day, and back to the hotel.

Now - because of all the booked flights INTO DC, we didn't have a flight out. Yeah, we didn't know when or how we were getting back to Chicago.

Turns out we managed to get on the same flight as the others from our team, so we were pretty pleased. Until we found out at noon that our flight was pushed out.

Shit.

Then it was pushed out again.

Damn.

After the event we hightailed it to the airport. Couldn't check in.

Hell.

Finally, stood in line to see what was going on. We got split up. I talked to the ticket agent and got on the next flight out. Scheduled for 4:30, but pushed to 5:30. WooHoo!!!!

My team? Standby or wait til Friday night at 8:30.

As we wait to see what will happen they announce that, due to weather in Chicago, we're REALLY gonna be late. BUT, there's no where to hold the plane. So the plan was to get everyone loaded up, and leave the gate. Then sit for 3 hours. Yes, THREE HOURS. I grab some water, chips and cookie - dinner - and a book, just in case. Yeah, looked like it was going to be a very long trip home.

It ended up we only sat for an hour. Got back to Chicago, where I got lost trying to find my car in the parking garage, and finally made it home at 10:00.

I'm exhausted. But so glad I went. I mean really....when you start your day off the way I did, how could it NOT be a great day?!?!

This little one started my day off with a hug. Seriously - how can you look at that sweet doll baby and not KNOW it was worth every effort to be there?!?!

Posted by Tammi at April 26, 2007 11:06 PM | TrackBack