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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Travel...again

Travel sometimes begets drama. For example, I did not expect when I woke up this morning that the following things would happen: Vikas didn't make our flight, I would be on an extremely tiny plane, and that as a result of turbulent weather, I would watch a man barf after we landed.

It's been a day. Worked most of the morning getting things ready, then went to the airport with Vikas. We had a leisurely lunch then went to the gate. As we arrived, the announcer people were explaining that they had overbooked the flight and due to weight restrictions needed to eject some people (after trying to bribe some volunteers with $250 and a next morning flight). Vikas was one of 7 people randomly selected to be denied boarding. So I went on without him, and he started looking for another flight.

The plane was tiny. 3 seats across, 18 rows. "EMB" is the plane type. Extremely Miniature Boeng, I thought. I could have reached from left to right of the plane if I lay on the floor. Tiny! Which meant a lot of turbulence. Going up it was like being on a roller coaster. The flight itself was smooth and we arrived fairly quickly because we had a tailwind behind us. Supposed to be 2:15 flight time and it took around 1:45. Up then down. The landing was pretty rough -- not as rough as the landing in Seattle last year for the windstorm, but because of the smallness of the plane it was a little more intense. I really felt like I was the plane rather than I was in the plane. I wasn't so worried except the last couple of seconds as we were hovering over the runway and the plane rolled pretty dramatically from wind. The pilot handled it fine and we didn't even bump hard.

As I was leaving the restroom, I watched a guy who was on the plane walk in and approach the trash can. He was beet red and he barfed pretty dramatically. Guess the flight didn't sit too well with him. He looked fine a few minutes later at the baggage claim.

Picked up a car at Thrifty about 10 minutes later (the car is a convertible, although it's not going to get much use this snowy, windy, cold couple of days). The drive to the hotel was about 40 minutes, and my internal GPS failed me -- a rare occasion. I partially blame Google Maps for having 3 of the roads and exits wrong. But I turned the wrong direction 3 times. I was able to undo it quickly, but still, my pride is a little wounded. It was dark out, never been here before, google maps told me to go West and meant East. So, still. My GPS rocks.

Checked in to the hotel and met Mike in the lobby (he's our sales minion). Doubletree gives you a warm cookie on arrival. This would have been perfect because it's cold and wet outside, except when I went out to move the car to a parking spot, I dropped the little cookie bag onto the pavement and it rolled out. 5 second rule doesn't apply when it's wet, so I chalked it up to the universe telling me I didn't need the extra calories anyway. /cry

Mike and I had dinner, talked about work, then he went off to a conference call. I went to my room and took pictures of it -- I think the square footage of the room is bigger than the plane I was on. So now just relaxing. Vikas just called and he arrived and we are going to meet when he gets to the hotel. I am about to review documentation for tomorrow and figure out what I am going to capture from the analysis.

So that's it! The day starts early so I will check in later in the afternoon. I want to see comments about the space shuttle - so watch for it!!

1 comment:

grandma said...

not to worry. cookies are on the way monday.