I had a lymphedema course to take in Pittsburgh over the weekend. The original plan was to leave Nashville at 12ish and arrive in Pittsburgh at 6:30ish. That would leave me plenty of time to get settled in my room and get plenty of rest for and 8-6 lecture on Saturday. That was the plan. All was going smoothly until we landed in D.C. at Dulles. We sat on the tarmac for 15 minutes waiting for the gate to open up. I knew it was going to be tight to get from one gate to the next. To make matters worse, the flight attendants had no gate information for us. I got of the plan and walked into a VERY hectic terminal. Made the call to go right to find a board with departure information. Of course it was 100+ yards away. And of course it was in the opposite direction. I took off toward my gate and noticed I had 6 minutes until the plan was set to leave. 4 minutes later, I ran up to the gate only to find 2 other folks standing there, out of breath, looking at a closed door. We were all on the flight from Nashville and we had all missed our connection. Lovely. I waited in a customer service line for an hour to have my flight pushed back to 10:20. That left me with 4+ hours to blow at Dulles and would have me to my hotel around midnight if I was lucky. But I wasn't. We boarded the plane and sat in it for an hour waiting for extra fuel due to bad weather. Double whammy. The only positive to this was we sat there so long we missed the weather we were adding extra fuel to avoid! I finally landed it Pittsburgh at 1:15 am. I checked in for my shuttle and was told it would be THIRTY FIVE minutes before they could pick me up. Ummmm, no. I could not stand outside an airport, by myself at 1:30 in the morning for another 35 minutes. I said I wanted to cancel the pickup and would just take a taxi. The taxi ride would only cost me EIGHTY DOLLARS!!! Thankfully he was taking another passanger further so I got a $20 discount for riding with him. I didn't care at that point. I just wanted to get to my room and go to bed. I am pretty sure I couldn't have gotten there any faster. George, the cab driver, was a mad man behind the wheel of the minivan. I feared for my life a few times... Anyway, he got me to Pittsburgh by 2:15. I was in bed by 2:30am and MAY have fallen asleep by 3:00am. It didn't really matter when the alarm when off at 6:45am. The course was awesome. But that didn't really matter either considering I was going on 3.5 hours of sleep. I struggled all day to keep my eyes open. Rather miserable!
We finished up the course on Sunday a tad early, 3:30pm. A classmate was kind enough to offer me a ride to the airport. No cabs or shuttle thankfully. I got there in plenty of time. Boarded my plane and headed to...Dulles. Of course the flight attendants had no gate information. But we checked that out on the computer before we took off so I felt confident. We landed and made it to my connection with no problem. We boarded the plane 5 minutes late but no big deal. I could handle 5 minutes. Then we sat. And sat. AND SAT. An hour and a half total. Come to find out, a baggage guy broke the "curtain" rod that covers the cargo door and protects if from luggage. The cargo door was deemed damaged and the plane could not fly with any luggage on board. They also needed 3 people to get off the plane. By that time, I was going to have to ask sweet Melissa to pick me up at 2:00am and I just couldn't do that to her. So I just got of the plane. Sure, United put me up in the Westin, paid my taxi drive there and gave me a $15 food voucher. All I really wanted was to go home, to my bed and see my boys!! I ended up making back to Nashville Monday morning at 9:10am. And my flight was even a little early. What?
As if travel woes weren't enough, my sweet Crosby cried every time we talked over the weekend. "Hold you, Mommy!!!! Hold you!!!" Nothing like telling your little one you can't love on them. Break my heart. And how terrible I felt for promising I would come in and give Crosby hugs on Sunday night when I got in. Not that he remembered but I sure did. I felt even worse on Monday because I was basically a useless mother. I let him watch the Disney channel most of the morning while I was in and out of sleep. Of course I was OUT when he took his nap. I still wasn't caught up on Tuesday and took another 3+ hour, full of crazy dreams, nap. I am finally feeling like I am back to normal! On Thursday! I know that was a boring story, but I just had to vent about it one more time!!! :-)
Switching gears to the one that really matters around here, Crosby Fox mastered his tricycle last week and I finally got pictures to document it...
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