It's 7/1- the halfway point for 2010- and I definitely plan to do a resolution post, but I'm saving that for the weekend when I will *hopefully* have a little more time to be reflective (I'm also planning blog catch up time- sorry I'm behind on reading/comments!).
Everyone who travels has his/her own horror story. This one isn't that bad, but because I haven't done too much traveling in my life, it definitely made an impression on me.
We start with Thursday night at the hotel. I was asleep early when I heard a strange static-y noise and a voice came over the room intercom (that I didn't know we had) saying to leave for the designated area (wherever that was) and that the elevators weren't working. I read enough scary books that the first thought I had was that someone was trying to lure me out of my room to ax murder me. But there were other people out in the hall, so I grabbed my jacket, key, shoes, phone and wallet (thinking, "I hope I don't die in a fire because I went back for my phone") and joined the human train walking down stairs and out of the hotel. It was only 10:30 pm, but because I has been asleep for 1.5 hours, it could have been 2am. So hung out outside, the fire department came, we got the all clear, and went back in. I was all settled back in bed ready to sleep again when the all clear announcements started on the intercom. After 20 minutes worth of being startled every 2, they decided that we'd been cleared enough and the announcements stopped.
We got a letter under our doors the next morning saying there'd been a small fire over the workout room and it was closed the entire next day. I didn't feel comfortable running outside by myself, so sadly I had to skip working on Friday.
Then Saturday we flew back from Seattle to Minneapolis no problem. There was a tight connection and the weather was crummy but we made it to our gate in time. And sat. And waited. Our original plane couldn't land so they brought a smaller one out of the hanger. It was 10pm, and they offered to bump some people to the next morning's early flight. We should have taken it. They kept saying they wanted to board the plane but the "ramp" couldn't come down. And then we were going to board but we didn't have flight attendants. Then we got flight attendants. We got boarding passes, we boarded the plane, I closed my eyes to take a little nap, and... they cancelled the flight because we didn't have enough fuel. It was 1:30am.
So we got off the plane and in line to get new tickets and hotel reservations. Everyone in my party got booked on the 1:30 flight except me (Thanks, ticket guy). We took the shuttle to the hotel and crashed at about 2:30am. I got up at 7:30 to try to work out and try to restore some sanity to my schedule. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when the light went out. I went out in the room. The alarm clock was off, too. And then I heard a bunch of people talking in the hall. The whole hotel had lost power.
Now I was up early and couldn't work out. I went out and took a short walk and went back in to try to get my flight changed to 1:30. No openings. I went down and had breakfast. The hotel generator started working and the lights came back on. I went back upstairs and dressed to work out. While I us up there, a coworker slipped a note under my door that she'd called and I was now on the 1:30 flight. YAY! I went back down and did a hard, sweaty hour on the elliptical. I went back up to get a quick shower but- the final argh!- the part of the electricity that came on was not the part that made hot water for the hotel. So I had a freezing 1/2 shower, got my stuff together, and left for the airport.
Whew. I'm glad I don't have to do that again any time soon.
