Long time coming...

It has been another long span of time since I last posted. A lot has gone on in our little world too. I flew out to help Aunt Amity drive home with a load of stuff. The driving wasn't so eventful but the flying certainly was. This country girl sure got a real experience in airports and planes. Thought I learned it all when we were getting Brayden, but the domestic side of experience was yet to be learned I guess.


I arrived at our small airport at 5:30 a.m. to fly out at 6:05, right away the lady told me we had a situation, not a good way to start the day. Our plane didn't come in from Denver the night before so they were sending the plane from Gillette down to pick up the 12 of us leaving from here. That plane didn't leave Riverton till 7:30 a.m.. There went my layover in Denver, out the window. We landed in Denver, my bag was NOT brought to the bottom of the steps so I stepped to the back of the plane to request it, I was escorted back to the steps...can't go back there. I turned around to watch the guy with the luggage and he had listened to me so had just put my bag down on the cart for the other guy to bring to me. This other guy was busy explaining to me that I couldn't have my bag because it was a "checked" bag. I told him it was NOT checked, it had the pink tag on it see its right there, so he went and got it for me. I took off RUNNING across the tarmack to the gate entrance, this was quite a ways actually, continued jogging down the hallway, stopped to double check my gate. Continued on my way, up the escalator, down A concorse, down the escalator, to the tram, on to concorse B, up the escalator, down the concorse to the gate, arrived with still 20 people to board, made it with a few minutes to spare. Lungs burning from the cold air I enhaled, but that does go away all be it not for a couple of hours. Called Am and told her I made it and got on the plane. We pulled away from the gate and out to the parking lot, I kid you not, we sat in the parking lot for 30 min eating up my layover in Chicago. By the time we landed at O'Hare, I was down to 20 min. I ran in found the monitors and my flight was still "on time" but the 4:30 flight to Buffalo was cancelled. I went on down to my gate, there were people waiting in the chairs but no personnel at the gate and we should have been boarding. I guessed it was delayed, so sat and waited for 5 min at which point another young man came running down the concorse and asked if this was still the gate for the Buffalo flight, (a lady had come to the gate as he got there) she said that this flight was cancelled too. Off we went to customer service, a line of 150 to 200 people I am sure. After a few minutes a lady came to about the middle of the line and had all the Buffalo people come to the computers. Turned out to be a wonderful thing as she showed me how to use these computers, I used them a lot that day. I got tickets for two flights to Washington Dulles then would get a flight from there to Buffalo. The earlier flight I was on standby and got on that plane, after a few minutes they came on to say the pilot was diverted to another airport and wouldn't arrive in O'Hare till 7:30 p.m. I ran to the second flight, it kept getting delayed, finally till 7:2o which meant I missed my connection in Washinton to Buffalo. Back to the drawing board, the guy at the gate put me on the 8:30 flight direct to Buffalo. Boarded that plane, and was told one of the crew members was out of hours they would find another one. After a few more minutes, we were told to gather our belongings the flight was cancelled, back to the computers, spoke on the phone to a really nice guy that got me a flight to Rochester no time to print tickets just run down the escalator, across the underground tunnel to the other concorse, get to the gate to get my ticket from the agent, no one there, waited three min and the sign changed to San Diego, flight cancelled just like that. Back to the computers, got the same man a spoke with 15 min before, he said nothing else was moving, best was a ticket on the 7:30 a.m. flight to Buffalo. Time to accept the fact that I was spending the night in the airport or I could spend $399 for a bed at the attached Hilton. I went to the gate for the morning flight and found a bench 4 seats long with no arm rests, I could stretch out, covered up with my coat, plugged the cell phone in and slept for about45 min of every hour. Not bad actually. Amity called me at 5 and said the storm hit there check my flight, yup cancelled, she said to just get to Cleveland, so I went back to the computers and picked up the phone, got a flight to Cleveland leaving at 10:30. Got on the standby list for the flight leaving at 7:45 and actually boarded that flight. Sitting on the plane for 5 min and the pilot said they over fueled this plane for landing in Cleveland, pump truck coming, little later, no pump truck is frozen will be 1 1/2 hrs before it can come, so a different plane, please take you belongings and leave this plane, got to next gate and board again. Finally at 9 something that plane began leaving the gate, I called Am and said "we are MOVING at last". Finally off the ground and I was never so relieved to land in Cleveland and know that I could follow the exit signs and leave the airports for GOOD!!. I waited for Amity for 45 min or so and she picked me up at the door, had to find room for my suitcase, but that was accomplished. Off to find food that wasn't airport food. Seemed everytime I bought something it was $7 no matter what. After lunch I drove for 2 hrs and then it was all up to sis to get us to Davenport. We made it and had a good supper, spent some time in the hottub that was 5 steps from our door and then showers and bed. What a feeling to crawl into a real bed. Next day was more of the same driving except I did a little more my share. We got to Cheyenne that night and then on into Laramie Friday morning to unload and see the new apt. After we unloaded we had to find an open road out of Laramie, turned out we could cut across to Wheatland. On that 54 mile stretch we met 11 highway patrol cars. Thats a lot of cops!! Ate lunch in Wheatland and then on to Casper. A bit of shopping that couldn't be avoided and headed home. Roger agreed to cook supper for us. We made it home in one piece.

Brayden was jumping up and down inside the door when I came in. He was glad to see me, altho he didn't cry or anything when I left. He was a good little boy while I was gone. I did talk to him on the phone each day, so it wasn't as though I was completely gone. I was pretty certain he had grown an inch ha ha.

Since being home, he has continued to spend a lot of time in the shop with Daddy, they had such a good bonding experience. And he is growing, we had to go up a size in shoes today. He was complaining of the other ones being "tight". There was a little room in the toe on them, but apparently not enough side to side. So up to the size 7 tennis shoes we go. I have shoes up to 9 in the closet so he is set for a while, it doesn't require a trip to town to change shoe sizes. :-)

Brayden is thrilled to have Aunt Ami closer to home. He asked for her the other night after she had gone back to Laramie so I called her so he could say "goodnight". Made both their nights I think!! He has been asking when she is coming back, so I would guess he is looking forward to it.

Now thats a long post, shouldn't wait so long to write I guess. Here are some pics too. I mostly wanted this all down for future reference, memory is going out the window ya know. Happens as we get older I hear. :-)