my trip to visit Ranch girl..

I will start by saying that I had a fabulous visit with Ranch Girl!  Thanks so much hubby!!!!  What a thoughtful Christmas present!  The trip to get there, was another story!!  Not all smiles that day ;(  To begin with, I didn't know that Indy is one of 15 airports in the US where you have to check you bags 45 minutes before your flight instead of 30 like ALL THE OTHER AIRPORTS IN THE WORLD!  Needless to say, I got there 40 minutes before my flight and they wouldn't let me check in, so I missed my connection in Chicago so I had to be re-routed from Indy to Denver to San Francisco, then I was able to catch my flight in SF to Burbank.  But that's not all, when I was in Denver, I had an aisle seat and apparently United boards the window seats before the aisle seat to eliminate people people crawling over each other, but before my group got to board, they announced that all the overhead bins were full and so anyone with a rolling suitcase carry-on would have to gate check their cases - it sucked, but life goes on, UNTIL they said that you would get your suitcase back at your final destination NOT in SF like with normal gate check situations.  I was not happy, but there were people with me going to Tokyo, one lady had a baby and she was counting diapers and bottles trying to figure out how much she would need to carry in her arms along with her baby to get them from Denver to Tokyo including their layover time in SF - I was appalled!  To keep on the path of an awful day of travel, we got into SF on time, but all of a sudden, nothing was coming in or going out and my flight was delayed several hours - I just kept thinking about that poor lady with the baby.  I remember traveling when my girls were that age and it's exhausting just keeping them entertained when you prepare for your scheduled travel time, but to take away all your stuff, then extend you layover just sucks!   Anyway, that's my sad travel tale, the rest of the trip was fabulous and I feel personally responsible for ending the drought in southern California (you too can hire me for your rain needs!) and my travel home went as originally scheduled, so all was well!!  I didn't take my camera since, sadly, it is not fully functioning, but Ranch girl's son took a pix of us before I left that I am waiting to get the file for then I will post it!!

think of me...

So, as you read this, I am winging it accross the country to visit Ranch Girl!  Here's what my day of travel will look like...  I have a 6am flight out of Indy to Chicago, then a nice little layover - time for coffee and a muffin (ok, it's a 2 hour layover so 

several cups of coffee and muffins!!).  Good thing that I will have packed this...

with lots of entertainment for me!  I keep m

unchies, knitting, reading, my DS to play games on, my Archos to watch movies on and of course I have my "liquid baggie"!!

I need to make sure that I have a good seat assignment and not one of these!!

Emergency exits seats are good for the legroom, but I HATE not having my stuff at my feet!  Don't even get me started all the education that goes into the responsibility of sitting in that seat - you can waste all your time on a short flight studying these em

ergency procedure cards!

I am looking forward to a nice peaceful flight - ok really 3 flights, but traveling alone makes it much better - trying to switch planes twice with hubby and the 3 girls is a whole other story!  Too much crap to lug around and too many people to keep entertained!  Don't get me wrong, my girls are great travelers and I really enjoy our family trips, but when it's the 5 of us, I prefer a direct flight  one change at the most!  When it's just me, I don't mind more than one transfer - especially when I'm heading on one of our girls' trips or in this case going to see Ranch Girl!!