Tag: stories

The Rare Land Shoe Shark

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This week has been a tough week. Not a horrible news, events that change your life kind of tough. But the nothing goes as planned, little fire drills everywhere, super busy but feeling like nothing got accomplished kind of tough.

So it seemed like a good Friday evening to spend at the beach.

The pups and I had been chasing sticks, splashing in the water and having a generally fabulous time for about 5 minutes or so, when we were joined by an older gentleman and his pup. I had met this guy a few times on our beach trips and always exchanged a few words, and then we both continued on our way, so I was hoping that’s what would happen this time. Not because I was especially anti social, but I had done enough talking to people for the week and really just wanted to throw sticks.

But he had other plans for the evening.

We started out just chit chatting about this and that, but soon he was sharing about all the time he had spent in the South Pacific, India and Asia back in the 80s. Ok, kind of a cool story and great adventure, so I was engaged. Pavi was slightly perturbed that my stick throwing was lagging somewhat with this interruption of conversation, but Ember was perfectly happy romping around with the new pup friend and annoying her brother.

And then suddenly the conversation shifted to aliens and UFOs and I found myself listening to his account of his up close and personal encounter with these beings while in Thailand.

I have to admit I was having a little trouble following the whole story, but I do know it entailed several people telling him he needed to put clothes back on, that he couldn’t be naked on he beach, him getting arrested while naked, aliens visiting him in jail and a gigantic white creature glowing with blue light appearing at the end of the pier

Apparently he made no connection between those events and the bag of whacky tobacky he had purchased from some random guy on the side of the road or the magic pills he apparently kept finding in his pocket and taking throughout this ordeal, but one has to wonder….

During this fascinating story, a group of 6, who I assumed was a family with older teen/ young adult children, had wandered down to the beach and were clustered just next to us. After a slight invitation from the daughter, my social Ember decided to act as the beach welcoming committee and pranced over to say hello to her new friends. They were delighted to meet her, and she ate up the attention. She even came back to grab a stick and returned to show them the quality of stick specimens our beach has to offer. Then it was back to romping with her brother and her new four legged friend.

My companion had wrapped up his alien story, but suddenly, as I just finish throwing a stick, he says “can I see your hand?” as he simultaneously grabs said hand.

Which is how I find myself getting my palm read on the beach.

While this is rather awkward, he seems harmless enough, if maybe a little lonely and maybe more than a little affected by the long term effects of whacky tobacky, so I decide to just let him stare at my palm lines for a minute or two and let him come up with whatever he thinks he sees.

Meanwhile, the family has decided to shed their footwear and go wading in the ocean.

If there is one thing my sweet little Ember cannot resist, it’s an abandoned shoe. More times than I can count, I have had to go in chase of a shoe, often into the yard with no shoes on. Even the split second they are left unattended while putting them on or taking them off, is too much for her to bear, and she feels the need to rescue the poor shoe from a life of abandonment.

And now there is a whole pile of unattended shoes just lying on the beach calling her name.

Just as I am about to find out about the 2 real loves of my life reflected in my palm, I see Ember streak past us straight into the pile of shoes.

Luckily, we’ve had lots of practice with “drop it!” and “bring it!”, so I was able to disengage my hand, while yelling these to her, and she dropped the shoe right on the water line before plunging into the ocean.

I returned the shoe to the pile while offering my apologies, but the family found the whole thing quite hilarious and were quite entertained by the whole ordeal. Just to be sure, Ember ran over to the dad, whose shoe I’m guessing it was, and offered a wet nose in his palm as an apology.

And now that family has a good story to write in their vacation blog.

And I will have to find another opportunity for a random beach palm reading to find out how long my lifeline is.

Is There a Mr. Fix-It In the House?

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I thought I had been lucking out the past few months. Not only did a get a bit of a break from traveling so much, the trips I did have to take were relatively smooth and story free.

I should have known the odds would need to right themselves eventually.

I just didn’t expect it all to happen in one trip.

I had a “quick” trip planned to North Carolina this week. Out on Wednesday afternoon, and back Thursday evening. Since there aren’t a lot of direct options for me into Raleigh/Durham, NC, my out flight was a connection in Baltimore.

The flight from Denver to Baltimore was smooth, and even arrived a little early, giving me those few extra minutes to grab some food before boarding leg 2. If I had seen the future, I may have grabbed a little more to eat.

We boarded the Raleigh bound flight on time, but were quickly informed once boarding was complete, that there was a maintenance issue with one of the plane’s navigation systems. Not to worry though. Maintenance was already here addressing the issue, and we hoped to be cleared to leave shortly.

No big deal.

Sure enough, they were back on about 15 minutes later saying maintenance had fixed the issue and we would be pushing back.

They finished up the paperwork, closed the main cabin door, and we pushed back from the gate.

Only to have them immediately put it back in drive and pull us right back up to the gate.

“Sorry, folks. While maintenance did fix the problem with the first navigation system, now the second system is throwing an alert, so we need to have them back to look at that one.”

I can already see where this is headed.

About 10 minutes later the captain is back, this time with a less optimistic message.

They are pulling the plane from service for the night, so we all have to deplane. Please see the agent at the top of the bridge for information on a new plane.

I’ll give them credit. We were off the plane less than 5 minutes before they were sending us to a new gate, with a new plane, and less than 30 minutes later we were all loaded on the new plane.

The problem was, the bags were not so lucky.

We were sitting on the plane for an hour, before the little carts with all the checked bags finally pulled up beside the plane.

At exactly the same moment that the flight attendant  came over the intercom to call for help with a medical emergency for a passenger in the back of the plane.

Which meant the bags had to wait to be loaded on the plane until the Emergency Medical Response team could board the plane and get the passenger back off.

Another 45 minutes later, the medical emergency has been taken off for care, the bags have been loaded and they announce they have closed the front door and we will be leaving soon.

Which was evidently just what the man in row 2 was waiting for as his cue. He decides to choose that moment to throw a fit and demand to be let off the plane.

Despite the fact that the flight attendant explained in order to do that they have to get clearance to re-open the door, get ground crew to do so and re-do all the paperwork which will only delay things even further, the man continues to demand to be let off the plane

I’m actually surprised he made off the plane in one piece. I thought the entire plane was going to riot .

Another 30 minutes later, we are FINALLY ready to go. For real this time.

I finally get to my hotel and in bed a little after 12:30AM, and had to be up at 5:30AM for a 7AM meeting. That set my Thursday up to be a great day!

I come out of my early morning meeting to a message that my flight for that afternoon had already  been delayed for 3 hours.

You have got to be kidding me!

This time my plane, which was starting it’s day in Burbank, was scheduled to make a pit stop in Denver, on it’s way to pick us up in Raleigh to take us back to Denver.

Evidently, before it could leave Burbank, however, it was pulled due to a flat tire and left Burbank 3 hours late.

Even I can change a tire in less than 3 hours.

So, this is how I find myself landing in Denver, 3 hours later than planned, and then still have to make the drive home when it’s already past my bed time.

Now, not to toot my own horn, but I had done a remarkable job of staying cool and letting all these irritations roll off my back to this point, if I do say so myself. Even though I was beyond tired,  I figured the irritations were at least behind me, and all I had to do was make it home.

I should have known better.

I get to my car in the garage, and pull up behind one car in line to pay my for my parking and put the airport behind me.

And I watch as the guy in this car tries 3 times to insert his parking ticket. Then watch as he tries 3 different credit cards to pay his fee. And then continue to sit there, and sit there, and sit there, as he does who knows what. Finally, after about 10 minutes, the arm goes up and I breathe out my irritation as I assume the guy will finally leave.

Except he doesn’t.

I’ve already admitted I was beyond tired, so I assume maybe this guy is too, and possibly he fell asleep behind his wheel and failed to see the arm go up releasing him from parking planet. So I decide to play a gentle alarm on my horn to wake him up and urge him into freedom.

Except he still doesn’t move.

So I toot again.

This elicits him popping his head out of his window and yelling, “Stop that!”

Stop that?? Ummm, what??

Maybe he doesn’t speak horn? He wasn’t able to figure out the message I was trying to send?

So I decide to help him out and translate to plain English for him. I pop my head out of my window and say

“You need to go!”

To which I get,

“I’m not going! They have my license on camera showing I didn’t pay!”

I am beyond confused as to what this guy is missing, but he must be more tired than I am. The arm doesn’t pop up to let you out unless you pay. The arm is clearly up! So, I decide to translate for this guy again.

“The arm is up, so you obviously paid. Now you need to go!”

To which the guy decides to pull his head back in his car, put it in reverse and back it quickly up half the distance to my front bumper.

This seems an interesting move for a guy who was just expressing concern about them having his license plate on camera for not paying, but doesn’t seem concerned about being on camera backing his little car into my SUV.

I get it. Drive and Reverse can be confusing. And this guy is obviously having a difficult time figuring things out at the moment. So I decide to try to help one more time.

I pop my head out the window and say,

“Ummm, you need to go forward…”

Which got him backing another several inches towards my car in response.

Then his head is back out the window and he yells, “I’m not going! If you don’t like it, you can move!”

“Ummm, I’d love to! Except you are in my way, and I can’t!”

Now the parking attendant two booths down starts yelling at the guy that he needs to go, but the guy continues to just sit there.

I try one more time and offer “He’s telling you you can go!” out the window, as the attendant continues to yell at the guy, and the guy continues to sit there.

Finally, another attendant comes out of the main booth and starts to walk towards the guys car. The guy finally decides to move.

After reversing one more time to come as close as he can possibly come to hitting my car, without actually hitting it, he finally puts his car in drive and takes off.

I sure hope he managed to find his way home and to bed a lot easier than he found his way out of DIA parking.

At least I found my way home and to my bed without anymore delays.

Goldilocks & Papa Bear

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While things have been a little quiet on the travel front this summer, tonight I have a story for you, thanks again to my dog Auni.

As any of my followers know, Auni suffered from a broken leg this past winter, and already has arthritis in her front leg. So as part of her “therapy” to keep her as active as possible, we go on almost daily walks.

Tonight, we headed out for our constitutional after dinner, and after the thunderstorms decided to clear out, around 7pm.

We were having a nice leisurely walk, stopping to sniff anything that might be suspicious, and exploring everything that might have changed since our walk two days ago, when I happened to catch a glimpse of something moving out of the corner of my eye.

We have a creek that runs parallel to the road in our neighborhood, and most of the driveways have little bridges going over the creek to get up to their houses.

Taking his evening constitutional and heading across one of these little bridges in our direction was our neighborhood Black Bear.

When I saw him, we were about 10 feet from running smack dab into him at the end of the driveway.

Luckily, since he was looking in the other direction, and ambling even slower than my canine companion, we were able to quickly back up about another 10 feet and come to a stop before he got to the end of the driveway and the road we were on.

And it gave me a few seconds to get my camera.

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I actually never carry my phone with me on our walks, but I happened to be waiting for a return call (on a package delivery issue, of course) and so had brought it with me tonight. However, my photography skills were a little lacking after this one picture when I realized he was looking right at us. I figured I should maybe pay more attention to what he was going to do, then take pictures.

And what did my faithful companion do? The same companion who literally turned into a wild woman 3 nights ago, when this guy was clearly outside our house around 10pm? That night she was pacing back and forth across the house, barking at every door and trying desperately to make me let her out to face her foe head on. (There were a few moments when I wondered why I wasn’t doing just that). But tonight, when she actually did confront her foe head on?

She sat calmly by my feet and watched him with me from our spot on the side of the road.

Which is probably a good thing in hindsight.

Our fellow ambler spent a few seconds in the above pose checking us out, and then turned and loped off across the street and into the yard on the other side, and we turned and continued our walk back to our house.

It’s always nice to make new friends in the neighborhood.

 

This is why We Can’t Have Nice Things…

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As most of you know, we just got back from a few weeks overseas. Evidently, while we were gone, we got a lot of rain, and the weeds, which seem to be the only things that grow easily in my yard, had taken that as their cue to grow thick and tall.

Basically my yard was overrun. And the fake grass, that seems to be the only grass that really wants to grow on my “lawn” was knee high.

So, I decided that this past weekend would be a great weekend to whip my yard into shape for the summer.

I decided that not only would I attack the weeds into submission, I would also plant flowers and shrubs to replace the ones that didn’t bounce back from last year’s hail storm, and give my yard a whole new face lift.

So off I went to HomeDepot after my coffee Saturday morning, to get supplies and plot out a landscaping strategy.

I added so much top soil, bark mulch, flowers, shrubs and vegetables to my cart, I actually had to make two trips to my car with it all. Every square inch of my car was full of my future garden.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning, and I was actually enjoying working up a sweat pulling weeds and digging holes.

And let me just say, I pulled SO. MANY. WEEDS. Enough to fill 3 extra large hefty bags.

My yard, as you my faithful readers know, is all on a hill, so I have many tiered beds, formed by the retaining walls, on all different levels up my hill.

I didn’t even mind hauling all the bags of mulch and dirt up my 28 steps.

Probably about 3 hours later, I had finished weeding, planting and mulching all the beds in the front of my house, when the afternoon showers forced a rain delay.

I wasn’t even upset by the call of the game, as it gave me time to run back to Home Depot for more bags of mulch and plan for the next day’s planting.

Bright and early, right after my coffee on Sunday, Auni (my faithful canine helper, who, by the way, is a great gardening assistant) and I were back at work, tackling the beds by my front door.

Another 3-4 hours later, my masterpiece was complete. I had planted beds of flowers, pots of flowers,  a bed of tomatoes and fresh basil (Hello, Caprese salads!), planted some shrubs around the fence line, and even strewn some wildflower seeds, hoping they might be more hardy for our Colorado climate. I had watered all the new plants, added root boost to give them the best start in their new homes, and done everything possible to help their transition.

I’m just going to say it. My yard was lovely!

And I was already looking forward to the coming months, when the plants and shrubs really started to flourish and I was eating fresh veggies from my “garden”

I took some pictures for posterity (and maybe a little bragging rites) and then poured some ice water to sit on my deck and enjoy my landscape for the remainder of the afternoon.

This was about 1 o’clock in the afternoon.

Around 4 o’clock I got ready to head to my hair appointment.

As I walked down the steps to my car, I smiled at how pretty my yard was, and what a reward those hours of work turned out to be, and took more mental pictures of the results.

If only I had known this was to be the last time I was to see that lovely yard.

On the way to my hair appointment, about a 10 min drive away, it started to rain. I’ll admit my first thought, was Good! This will be great for all my new little flowers!

By the time I pulled up to the hair salon, it was a torrential downpour. So much so, I sat in my car, literally right outside their front door, for 10 min, waiting for it to let up enough that I could make that 5 foot or so run, and not be completely drenched.

While it did let up long enough for me to reach the door, the torrents continued for a solid hour. The roads had trenches 3 inches deep along both sides as the drains struggled to keep up with the deluge.

People’s phones kept going off in the salon with weather alerts and flash flood warnings.

I’ll admit, I was a little concerned about what was going on at my house, partly because I had left all the windows open, and a little bit about the yard.

But I checked the radar and the weather alerts, and it appeared that the storm was just missing my area. Maybe we just got a lot of rain too.

If only that were the case.

As I drove home a couple of hours later, the closer I got to my house, the worse the roads and yards around people’s houses got. In fact, about a mile from my house, there was such a pile up of slushy hail, it looked like there was about 3-4 inches of slushy snow in the road. The rest of the road was covered in inches of thick mud and sand the rushing river that had run down it during the storm had left behind.

When I pulled onto my road and rounded the corner to head up my hill, I already knew I was not going to like what I saw.

Apparently the storm not only brought torrential rain to our area, but very gusty wind, and lots of hail. While the hail was not big enough to do any damage to the cars or houses, there was so much of it, it piled up literally inches thick.

My whole yard looked like it was covered in 4 inches of snow.

And not only were all my flowers gone, and plants completely crushed or literally razed away, but the leaves and debris from the surrounding trees and that the rushing water left in my yard, made the weeds that had been having a hay day just a couple days before, look inviting.

I couldn’t even really assess the damage until this morning, when the hail all “melted”. But it was basically as bad as I assumed.

So, I am very glad that my 6+ hours of work, allowed me to enjoy my pretty summer yard for exactly 2 hours. And the good news is, I have lots more projects to fill my weekend’s for the rest of the summer now!

I also have a feeling I will be putting that “unconditional plant guarantee” to the test in the near future, so stay tuned! You know there will be a story or two to accompany that!

Memories are the Best Souvenirs…

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I just returned from a lovely trip to Europe with my family, to celebrate my son’s graduation from college. (I know, I can’t believe it either).

The trip was amazing, beautiful, fun, and of course, not without stories.

Our trip started off with a lovely visit in London. As we landed from our 9 hour flight, I saw an email from Air B&B that there had been a flood in the apartment we had booked and they would be unable to accommodate us. Cue a slight panic, as sleeping on the streets of London was not how I had planned this trip starting out. Luckily, that panic was short lived. When I logged into Air B&B to read the entire message, our hosts apologized for the inconvenience, but let me know they had another apartment just around the corner from the original booking, and they would be happy to accommodate us there. The apartment was comfortable, and a perfect home base for exploring all London had to offer.

Waking up on day 3, it was quickly apparent that someone on our long flight had decided to share with me my first trip souvenir.

From my scratchy throat, clogged head and the worst cough I have ever had, I was pretty sure I had Typhoid, Bubonic Plague, the Bird Flu, or possibly all three.

This was not exactly the kind of souvenir I had been looking for.

I still had 12 days of sightseeing planned, however, so I was not letting a pesky, (possibly deadly) virus slow me down. So I just added several European pharmacies to my sightseeing agenda, added several pills, sprays and lozenges to my souvenir collection, and soldiered on.

The various pills and medicated state I found myself operating out of, soon came in very handy.

We arrived in Ireland and rented a car for a drive across the county.

I was already a little nervous about driving on the wrong side of the road, but surprisingly found that that, itself, was pretty easy to adapt to. It was actually amazing how quickly going left around a traffic circle became second nature.

And can I just say, they love their traffic circles in Ireland?? I’m not even exaggerating a little when I say that we couldn’t go more than half a mile in any direction without hitting a traffic circle.

We made it to Galway without issue, but the real fun came the next day, when we decided to take a trip further west to Connemara.

Driving on the wrong side of the road was relatively easy on a 4 lane highway. However, you leave those highways in Ireland, and the roads quickly narrowed to no more than a lane and a half of what we are used to here in America.

With absolutely no shoulder.

There is literally the road, and then a hedge, or a tree, or a house a mere inches from your car.

Oh, and did I mention the roads are windy? Like you can’t see more than 100 ft down the road because of all the sharp bends and curves, windy.

This all just added to the fun of driving on the wrong side of the road. Especially when you met another car. Or one of the many tour buses on these roads.

With nowhere to move over. And all going a mere 100 km/hr.

But, in case that doesn’t sound like enough fun for you, it got better.

On this particular day, they were also doing a bike race on this road, in this part of Ireland.

So on top of dealing with sharp curves, tour buses, and super narrow roads, we also found ourselves dealing with bikes.

Lots and lots of bikes.

That were not going 100 km/ hr.

And had no where to go either, except smack dab in the middle of the lane we were driving in. Sometimes in groups of 10+ bikes thick.

While I appreciated the additional challenge to my driving skills, I was more amazed at these bikers, who obviously were Frogger level Master Plus back in the day.

Somehow, we made it to our destination with no casualties.

The middle part of trip was relatively uneventful, at least in the story department. Besides the fact that I had to continue adding pharmacy stops to our itinerary in every destination, we continued to enjoy the beautiful weather and amazing sites everywhere we went.

Until it was time to come home.

We ended our trip in Paris, and were preparing for our departure the night before, when my parents went to check in for their domestic flight back to Maine after their Trans-Atlantic flight stateside.

We had all booked our international flights together, but their return flight was bringing them back to Newark, while ours was bringing us to Denver. So they had to book another flight from Newark to Maine.

Which my dad had done back in February.

Or so he thought.

As he went to check them in for that flight, he was treated to a pop up that said that flight reservation had been cancelled.

That was going to be a little inconvenient.

Which is how he found himself on the phone with the travel site through which he booked the reservation. For roughly an hour and 45 minutes total, across about 3 calls, and about 75% of that time being on hold, while they tried to figure out what happened.

All at a mere $2/ minute on his international cell phone plan.

Which didn’t get any easier to swallow when he was told that, “OOPS!”  Somehow, when he booked the flight back in February, the travel site had never actually sent the payment  to the airline, even though they had charged his card for said payment. Which had caused the airline to cancel the reservation.

Not to worry, though. The flight was still available. At about 3x what the original fare had  been.

Cue more hold time, calls back and $2/minute cell phone time.

Luckily, he eventually got a supervisor who was able to get them booked and waived the extra charges.

Yay! Everyone would be able to get home.

Or so we thought.

We arrive at Charles de Gaulle the next morning, make it through security, and to our gate with plenty of time to spare. Everything seems to be going as planned.

Until about 30 minutes before our flight.

When we start getting announcements and alerts that our flight to Frankfurt is delayed about 10 min.

This got my attention as we both only had exactly an hour, once we touched down in Frankfurt, to make our connecting flights. 10 min shouldn’t affect our ability to still make our connections, as long as it wasn’t any more than that.

But of course you know that wasn’t the case.

Soon we were looking at a delay of 30 min, and I was getting alerts on my phone that my parents were not going to make their connecting flight, but we should still be good on ours. Which was very confusing as we had 5 minutes difference in our connecting flight times.

So, I find myself at the desk, trying to see what our options are.

Sure enough, it didn’t look like my parents would make their connection, although their system was saying “no problem, you’ll make yours” as far as ours was concerned Still confused on that, but first things first. We needed to find another option for my parents.

The gate agents explore options, spend lots of time on their computer, phoning friends, and conversing in French, but finally come up with an alternative flight plan.
They will now fly to Munich, catch a flight to Newark, and still be there in time to catch their domestic flight to Maine.

Thank goodness, after all those $2/min minutes on the phone last night!

They get their new boarding passes, and head to their new gate.

Then the gate agent turns to me and says, “Now I have bad news”.

Of course now the system is saying we will not make our connecting flight either.

Nice of it to catch up.

So thus begins the search for alternative options for us to make it to Denver.
Cue more computer time, more phoning friends and conversations in French.

All to tell us that they have no other options. Any alternative flights are sold out or bounce us all over the country once we make it back to the US.

Our “best option” for now is to stay on our current flight to Frankfurt, and then try again for other options there, as they would have many more options available to them.

Which is how we find ourselves waiting to board our delayed flight. Which at least the plane has now showed up for and landed during all this research time.

We board our plane and are ready for push back and taxi by noon. The pilot comes on to announce the conditions are favorable and he thinks he can get us to Frankfurt in about 50 min as opposed to the hour and 5 minutes scheduled.

Hmm. Our connecting flight is scheduled for 1:25. If he can get us there in 50 min, that would leave us 30 min to still make our flight. We are in the front of the plane, and we can run if needed, so maybe we’ll make our connection after all!

Of course you know I wouldn’t be writing this if that was the case.

We push away from the gate, taxi out to our position for take off…and sit there for 20 min.

As the minutes tick away, I am realizing our chances are ticking away with them.

Finally the pilot comes on and says:

“Well folks, sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t. Unfortunately, the plane that was right in front of us, had an ‘incident’ and needed to be contacted by police/security, which caused us to lose our take off slot, so now we are waiting for a new time”

I can’t make this stuff up. And now I really want to know what is going on on that other plane. Which of course I never find out.

But thanks to this “incident”, we find ourselves landing in Frankfurt at the exact same time that our flight to Denver is taking off.

Which is how we get the chance to add a 5th country and another night to our trip itinerary.

Despite all the glitches and the added visit to Urgent Care upon our arrival home, it really was an amazing trip, and I wouldn’t have traded the stories anyway. Just maybe the cough.

 

Episode 134: The Girl in the Hotel Room

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I was going to start this post with the way my trip this week started. Which was with me pulling out of my garage to head to the airport, only to discover that I had a flat tire. But I thought “there is no way my faithful readers are going to believe that this is the start of another story barely over a year after it was the start to the first”  (let alone that this is the 5th time in a year). So I decided not to start with that. Even though it is 100% true.

Instead, I want to start with another phenomenon that seems too bizarre to have happened twice. A Bomb Cyclone.

I am pretty much convinced that whoever coined this phrase, is trying to get as much play out of it as possible before the next new and never before heard of weather phenomenon takes it’s place.

Like a “Grenade Tornado”. Or maybe an “Uzi Hurricane”.

I can’t think of any other reason I had never, in all my years, heard of a Bomb Cyclone, until a month ago, let alone how one could never have occurred before the year 2019. And yet we have now (supposedly) had 2 in a month.

I saw all the signs on the highway on my way to DIA, flashing Blizzard Warnings and alerts to expect travel disruptions.

So I can’t say I was very surprised when I woke up yesterday morning to an email saying my 7pm flight had already been cancelled.

Since I was in the lovely Bay Area, where it was gorgeous, and sunny and in the 70’s and where all the trees are in bloom, I wasn’t even that upset about being stuck another night in that climate, as opposed to dealing with a blizzard back home.

I was a little less understanding this afternoon, however, when I landed at DIA a little after noon, to find less than an inch of snow on the ground and completely clear roads.

Evidently the biggest weather event that CO ended up experiencing yesterday was a 60 degree drop in temperature. From a balmy 80 degrees on Tuesday to a chilly 23 degrees on Wednesday.

But in Colorado that just means you throw on your North Face fleece with your shorts and flip-flops.

So I got to spend another night in CA thanks to the “Little Blizzard that Wasn’t”.

(Just a thought for the future: Could we maybe wait until we actually see a snowflake before we shut down the city?)

If it wasn’t for this fantastic overreaction, however, I wouldn’t have a story to share with you this week, so for that we should all be grateful.

Since my flight was cancelled, and I was rebooked on an early morning flight out of Oakland this morning, I found myself in need of a hotel.

I haven’t spent any time in Oakland, mainly because Oakland is not a place one spends any time. However, I do know that there are areas of Oakland you do not want to venture into. With that in mind, I was pretty adamant that my hotel needed to be very close to the airport.

Unfortunately, while on the phone with our travel agency trying to find such a hotel, the only one with an available room, was a Radisson about a mile from the airport.

I have never stayed in a Radisson before, and it definitely would not normally top my list of places to stay, but the pictures looked okay, it was near the airport, and in an area I knew was okay, so I took it.

Or so I thought. Oh, what a difference a mile can make.

I arrive at the hotel at a little after 9pm, and as soon as I pull into the parking lot, I realize the area and the hotel may not be quite as ideal as I had anticipated. I actually sit in my car for a few moments trying to decide if I actually want to check in. But after weighing my options,  I decide that this is still a (maybe marginally) safer option than sleeping in my rental car on the side of the road, so I decide to just bite the bullet and just get to my room.

Just to paint the picture for you, the hotel is a 1950’s style motor court hotel, with two floors of rooms, that all have exterior entrances that open off the exterior corridor, and all look down on the central courtyard and the pool.

Think of every hotel where the person who does not want to be found in every tv show and movie you have ever seen has been, and that was this hotel.

I check in, and get to my room as quickly as I can, and decide to just turn in early and try to get these few hours over with as quickly as possible, hoping that I don’t wake up in an episode of Law & Order.

In all fairness, the hotel interior had obviously been recently upgraded, and despite the retro, art-deco 70’s era decor they chose not really being my style, it was clean and comfortable.

And despite the fact that it smelled like spaghetti-O’s and had this continuous, low volume ticking that sounded like the timer on a homemade bomb, coming from somewhere I never did locate, my room was pretty decent.

So I decided to just get in my pj’s try to forget the outside and the area, and just pretend I was in any of my normal hotel rooms for the next few hours.

I had just got in my pj’s, arranged everything for a quick departure in the morning, and was just getting ready to climb into bed with my book, when there is a knock at the door, followed by a pause, and then a male voice saying “Maintenance”

Because of course there is. If I was writing the script for this tv crime drama, I couldn’t have written it any better.

Which is also the reason there is no way I am opening that door.

I hesitate a second trying to decide what to do, then try to put on my most intimidating  “I’m a Judo black belt, don’t mess with me” voice, walk close to the door and say:

“Umm, maintenance for what?”

No answer. I am actually just starting to think I actually had scared him off and turned to go back to bed, when there is another knock, followed by a brief pause, and then the voice announcing “Maintenance” again.

Seriously. This writer is obviously a pro, and is following the recipe for a successful crime drama to a T. I can almost hear the “this is not going to end well for her” music swelling in the background.

“What are you here to fix?”

Another pause.

“I am here to fix….. that thing that is broken. Someone call the front desk”

Oh, in that case! Please come on in! That thing, that evidently neither one of us knows is broken, definitely needs to be fixed.

“I didn’t call the front desk. There’s nothing broken here”

I stand there and wait for over a minute, but I must have sounded way more scary this time because there is nothing else from his side of the door, and I assume he is gone.

I am definitely not going to pull aside the curtains and look out the window that makes up the entire wall to the right of door, however. That is a sure fire way to make the creepy music hit a crescendo when the psycho’s face is in the window.

(Seriously. whoever thought an exterior wall made of glass was ever a good idea in a hotel??)

I double check to make sure the deadbolt is secure, drag the armchair in the corner in front of the door for good measure, and decide if ever there was a night that sleeping pills were invented for, this was it. At least then I can say I slept through any nefarious events that might occur in the course of the night.

Thankfully, the sleeping pill does it’s job and the rest of the night passes uneventfully (at least to my knowledge) and I am up and out and on my way to the airport bright and early this morning.

I also want to take a moment to thank the airlines and air traffic control, that were so concerned for my safety, that instead of allowing me to fly in a non-blizzard, they allowed me to have a night in Hotel California instead.

 

Things Seem a Bit Foggy…

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This week was a quick trip to Salt Lake City for dinner with a client.

At first I was excited, because I can actually get a quick direct flight from right here in COS without having to drive all the way to Denver!

Alas, when I looked at my two daily options, one put me into SLC way too early for my 6pm dinner, and one put me in too late.

But I wasn’t really in favor of spending 1/4 of my exactly 24 hour round trip on the road back and forth to Denver.

So instead I booked connecting flights with my dear friends on United out of COS. I did make sure the connections were in Denver, however, just in case my United friends continued their near perfect streak of travel issues. At least I would be within driving distance of home.

My trip to SLC was relatively uneventful. My super long 17 minute flight from Colorado Springs to Denver was a little bumpy, but who had time to really care.

I had just enough time on my 50 min layover to get some water and be ready for boarding.

My actual time in SLC, while with very few hours actually awake, was pretty nice. It was a beautiful evening in the bowl, and a pleasant dinner with good company.

I set my alarm before drifting off for 6am to make sure I had time to get to the airport and get the ever important coffee, before my 8:25am flight.

Except.

Having got my coffee, and starting to become pleasantly awake, I walk up to my gate just in time to hear them announce that we are on a “ground hold” from Denver flight control, due to “freezing fog” in Denver.

Wait. What?

Freezing fog? Is that really a thing?

I have traveled a lot for a lot of years. How have I never heard of frozen fog at any other time, on any other trip? Not to mention my slightly more than a few years on this planet. I’m quite sure I have never heard of freezing fog at any point during this time.

I make a note to consult with my super smart 3rd grade friend, Christopher, who I happen to know, through his mom, is studying weather.

They continue to say that at that point, the delay is only set for 30 min, and everyone should be good on their connections, so I decide to finish enjoying my coffee.

As the coffee continues to clear the un-frozen fog in my brain, however, I realize I am hearing the ongoing boarding announcements for the Delta flight to Denver, that is also scheduled to leave at 8:25.

Something is wrong with this picture. Both flights are heading to Denver?

Check.

Both are scheduled to leave at 8:25?

Check.

But somehow, the Delta flight is actually boarding and not delayed, while us lucky United passengers are sitting here at the gate and at least 30 min delayed.

Curiouser and curiouser.

I decide not to get too worked up yet. Maybe the Delta crew just haven’t gotten the message, and all those people will actually just sit on the plane during their ground hold, instead of in the slightly more comfortable terminal.

But I just continue to watch as the Delta plane is loaded, the doors closed, and it pushes off the gate.

Sure enough, it takes off merrily on it’s way to Denver as planned.

What kind of weather is this that only affects one airline and not another?!?

I bite my tongue, and take a deep breath, and decide as long as we leave at 9 and my connection is intact, all will be well in the end.

But of course we don’t.

At 9, instead of coming on to announce we will be starting the boarding process, they come on to announce that we are now on another delay for at least another hour, because instead of the Denver fog un-freezing, it is actually getting more frozen. And now I will definitely miss my connection

Now I can’t help myself. I must inquire.

So I walk up to my United agents and ask if they can explain what I obviously missed in 3rd grade weather, about this frozen fog that can affect one airline and not another.

Of course they missed that day in 3rd grade too, and have no answer for me, except that since United has the largest fleet, they are often the most affected by weather issues.

But not to worry! They have already rebooked my connection to the 3:45pm flight to COS.

I literally can not form a response to this, despite being fully loaded with coffee, except to  give them my tilted head, scrunched up eye look.

I take another deep breath and decide continuing the conversation is going to be pointless, so instead I head back to my seat, while I pull up the Delta app on my phone. Sure enough, their 8:25 flight is en route to Denver and still on track to touch down in about 20 minutes time. I also see that they have another flight heading to Denver at 9:59, that is also, miraculously, showing on time.

So I make my way over to the Delta desk directly across the terminal from my United desk.

“I was just curious, if this was accurate, and if your 8:25 flight actually took off to Denver with no issues?”

“Yes”

“And your 9:59 flight is still on time and not delayed?”

“Um, yes I think so. Let me check. Yes. It’s on time”

“Hmmm. I’m just a little confused, because I’m on that United flight right there, that was also supposed to take off at 8:25 to Denver, but was delayed due to weather. So, I’m not really sure how the weather isn’t affecting your planes”

“Yeah, I heard those announcements, and I was wondering what that was about.” Then she looks at me. “But, um, sometimes, it’s the type of aircraft that is affected or not”

I just give her my “I don’t really know what to say to that” look and move on.

“Ok, so are there any seats still left on your 9:59 flight?”

She consults her computer. “It looks like there are 4 seats left”

“Great, thanks! I’ll be right back”

I turn and walk back across the hall to my United friends, wait for them to finish finding solutions for the other un-connected passengers, and when it is finally my turn, I ask them to push my ticket to Delta, so I can travel with an airline that appears impervious to weather.

“But that will only get you to Denver. You won’t have your connection to Colorado Springs”

“I’m pretty sure I can manage” is all I say. I don’t say that even if the United flight did manage to take off at 10, I wasn’t exactly planning on sitting around DIA until 4pm waiting for a 17 min flight.

To the agents credit, he pushed the ticket to Delta without much more to-do, except to say that he has never really been able to figure out the way they manage weather delays either. I just give him a smile, thank him for my Delta voucher, and head to my Delta gate to check in.

5 min later, I have a boarding pass, and another 5 min after, we are actually boarding the plane. While the United crew is still sitting at their gate.

Besides being a bit more bumpy than normal upon approach to DIA, our hour long flight flew by, and I land to what appears to be a sunny, 45 degree day in Denver.

I hop on the train to the main terminal, call an Uber as I ride up the escalator, and walk out to Arie waiting for me at the curb.

Arie is a tiny Asian grandpa, who seems genuinely excited when he sees he has to drive me to Colorado Springs. I assume it’s the triple digit fare that helps with this.

As soon as we leave the airport, Arie literally drives his Prius like there are monsters chasing us, and we make it from DIA to COS airport in an hour and 30 min flat. That might actually be a record, even for me, who has had a speeding ticket or two.  I could take driving lessons from Arie, I think.

And at 3:45 I had had my lunch, unpacked and was sitting comfortably in my house.

Cats aren’t the Only Ones with 9 lives

My 30,000 foot view1 Comment

I almost died this week.

You’re probably wondering how I can be emotionally recovered enough to be writing about that, just a day or two later. But the truth is, this is not my first near death experience.

I seem to have regular, periodic episodes that allow me to evaluate my life as it flashes before my eyes and see how I’m doing so far.

Some of these episodes may, admittedly,  be of my own doing. I seem to have this occasional cerebral hiccup that  allows me to believe my skills and abilities are far above where they are in reality. Some are due to the choices of others or the Fates. Either way, they do manage to keep life exciting.

Like the time I was trampled by a horse.

Or the time I was hit by a car.

Or that time I almost rolled backwards over the edge of Pikes Peak. Good times!

Or that one time I tried CrossFit. (Seriously people. Who invented that torture??)

I also know that my frequent traveling increases my potential for danger. While I understand that flying is stastically safer than driving in my car, let’s face it. When you’re hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles per hour, thousands of feet off the ground, it doesn’t take much to throw things off.

Even with that delicate balance, in all the hundreds of flights I have taken in the past few years, I have never been in danger, and have escaped with nary a scratch (if we don’t count the head injuries from the monstrous backpacks people carry).

I’m afraid I can’t say the same about the airports, however.

Like the time that the escalator handrail decided to eat my sweater, that I happened to be wearing at the time. The handrail tried to pull my sweater back down, as the rest of me continued to follow the step under my feet up.

That could have ended badly.

Or the time that I nearly got crushed by the automatic train door. I barely escaped, but my bag wasn’t so lucky,

The airport was the scene for this week’s near death encounter too.

For any of you unfamiliar with the Denver airport, to get from any of the terminals to the main terminal, you have to take a train. And to get to this train you have to go down a set of escalators.

There is one escalator that takes you halfway down, then you make a U-turn to get on the second escalator that will take you to the bottom.

This means the second escalator is slightly offset and below the top one. This will be important in a second.

I had successfully made it down the first escalator, made my U- turn, and was about halfway down the second, when the incident occurred.

Someone who was still on the top escalator- and who evidently skipped or slept through the day momentum and gravity and falling objects was explained in physics class- either failed to see the need to secure their metal water bottle to their bag or their person, or decided that was a good time to juggle this metal water bottle and missed the grab.

The water bottle took a swan dive over the side of the top escalator and arced through the air to miss my head by inches, and land on the step right behind me on the bottom escalator.

Did I mention this water bottle was metal?

So when it failed to give me a much more serious head injury than any I’ve received from gargantuan backbacks, it nearly succeeded in taking me out with a heart attack at the sound of metal hitting metal right behind me.

At least, had it succeeded in ending my life, I would have been glad I hadn’t seen it coming.

I retrieved the water bottle, and had a very educational lesson on physics ready to deliver to the owner when they retrieved it at the bottom. However, the owner decided they weren’t interested in either the lecture or the water bottle, and never came forward.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to try to make sure I get all I can out of the few lives I have remaining.

 

 

 

 

 

Flight of the Bumble-Hornet

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I know I have been remiss in writing in a while. I could offer you up a bunch of excuses, but I hope this story will be enough for you to forgive me.

Most of you know that I live in an area where up close encounters with our wildlife  can happen often. I’m sure we will all remember what happened when a bat decided to come and pay a visit.

This story involves yet another winged critter.

A few weeks ago, I decided to enjoy one of our few and last beautiful fall days, and spend some time reading on my deck.

(What happened to fall BTW?? Did it forget it is supposed to make an appearance between summer and winter??)

Anyway, back to the deck.

I am an avid reader. And like any avid reader of the 21st century, especially one who travels frequently, my library is conveniently stored on my easily packable iPad.

So I am sitting on my deck, reading my book, on my iPad.

When a hornet decides it really likes something about my hair in this particular moment, and takes up doing laps around my ears.

I absent-mindedly try to flick him away a few times, but he is having none of it, and quickly resumes his laps.

We have a special name in our house for hornets, thanks to my dog, who loves gobbling them up in mid-air, like they are the tastiest snacks ever offered.

So we call them Scooby Snacks.

However, on this particular day, my trusty canine companion is more interested in working on her tan, then feasting on Scooby Snacks. Despite my cries for help, she refuses to come to my rescue, so I am left to fight on my own.

I make a few more vigorous attempts to encourage this pesky winged bugger to find another arena to continue his workout, but he refuses to leave.

So I put my iPad on the arm of my chair, and jump up to confront my foe face to face.

And give my iPad just enough of nudge with my thigh as I get up to knock it off the chair to the floor.

Where it slides under the deck rail. And falls the 10 feet to the walk below.

I had been considerate enough to leave my case open, and it was considerate enough to fall face up, so I could watch my screen shatter on impact from my perch 10 ft above.

Sigh.

I go down and rescue my iPad- which is miraculously still working- not that it matters much, since I can’t see anything through the millions of fine lines criss-crossing my screen.

Immediately my thoughts go to the fact that I am leaving the next day for a 2 day work trip, followed immediately by a trip to California to meet a friend for the weekend. Which meant a lot of plane time. And a lot of reading time. Which was going to be hard to do with my shattered library.

Luckily, I had purchased the protection plan when I bought this iPad a mere 5 months prior, because I have lived with myself long enough to know this protection would come in handy, with or without the help of hornets.

So I head out to the big box store that supposedly offers the Best place to Buy electronics and the like, and where I had purchased my iPad and this protection plan.

After waiting in line to talk to one of the Geeks behind the counter, I am informed that even though they sell iPads and the protection plans, they actually do not honor or provide any service when this protection is actually needed. They don’t even offer replacement on these insured products.

To take advantage of this protection, I would actually have to go to our local Apple store.

Now, I don’t know what it is like at your local Apple store, but I have been to ours enough times to know that this is never an “in and out” excursion. In fact you can pretty much plan on sacrificing hours and hours of your life that you will never get back, waiting for assistance at the big store of the Fruit.

I am not happy about this change to my afternoon plans.

I log onto my handy-dandy Apple app, in the hopes of making an appointment and minimizing my wasted time.

Only to find that the next available appointment is Friday afternoon.

It is currently Saturday afternoon. I will be in California by Friday.

This is less than ideal.

I call the Apple store, in the hopes they will take pity on me with my sad tale and find a way to work me in.

Not only does the phone ring endlessly, until I am finally punted over to the national Apple hotline, when this agent attempts to call the local store for me, even she has to wait approximately 30 minutes to get through.
And the manager she speaks with basically laughs at her when she asks about the possibility of getting me in that day.

It is about 4:30 in the afternoon. The store is open until 9. Yet the manager tells us they are basically sending people away because they are on a 5 hour wait for a service appointment.

I guess I’m glad I called before I drove all the way up there.

I am told my “best” option is to show up 30 min prior to store opening the following day, wait in line until they open, and hope that I am one of the first ones there so I can be first on their walk in list.

All for them to literally take my busted iPad and hand me a new one.

What happened to the good old days when you could walk in, grab the product off the shelves and walk up to the counter to complete the transaction??

While I begged to disagree about this being any sort of “best” option, I realized my options were greatly limited if I wanted my mobile library to accompany me on my trip.

So guess where I found myself at 10:30 the next morning?

That’s right.

Standing in line outside the Fruit store.

Luckily, I was the second one in line. The guy in front of me had longer legs and walked from his car one step faster than I walked from mine. He may not have known we were racing, but I did.

I was amazed that in that 30 minutes, the line grew to 50+ people behind me.

I guess I’m not the only one who needs to purchase those protection plans.

I will say that the Fruit vendors were very efficient and I was in the door and with a tech at 11 sharp and out the door with my new iPad at 11:30.

So when I headed out later that day, I did so with my library on my back. Despite the Scooby Snacks best efforts.

Lost In Paradise

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We just got back from an amazing week on the beaches in Belize. One of those vacations that you don’t want to end. Sun, sand and sea. Can’t think of a much better combo.

But of course, even Paradise has stories.

On our first full day, after spending the morning soaking up as many sun rays as possible, we decided to take the paddle boards out for a spin. We get the paddle boards in the water, get on our feet and start slowly paddling out to sea. We had just cleared the end of the pier, enjoying the starfish the size of dinner plates hanging out on the bottom of the ocean, when yours truly tries to adjust her footing…. and promptly loses her balance and finds herself swimming with the starfish.

I break the surface, flailing like a fish out of water, recover my paddle board, finish hacking half the Pacific out of lungs and start towing my board back in so I can get back on top of it, since the view was better than from underneath.

I go a couple feet when I realize my sunglasses, that I had just pushed up on my head prior to deciding to take a swim, are no longer there.

Of course.

I do a quick look around to see if any of those starfish are sporting a new pair of shades, but no luck.

J-man, who was still comfortably on his board starts paddling around in circles close to where I tumbled to see if he can locate them. Even with the crystal clear water he wasn’t having much luck, so I towed my board back to shore,  grabbed a snorkel mask instead and decided to extend my swim and see if I could enjoy some tropical fish who hopefully had found my glasses.

Finally, after about 10 minutes, of J-man scouting from his perch, and me swimming around with my face in the water, he finally located them.

And patiently paddled in place until I decided to come up from below and could actually hear him trying to tell me that I was heading in the wrong direction and the sunglasses were right in front of him.

The important thing is the sunglasses were rescued.

Fast forward to our last evening on the island. We walked back to our cabana after dinner, which was the very last one on the end of the island.

Believe me when I tell you that it gets dark on the island at night. Which is great for watching the stars from the hammock. But not so great for what was coming next.

The wind had been picking up through dinner and we were watching lightening over the water on our walk back, so I decided I would collect all our various swim gear and towels we had hanging out on the deck to dry.

I collect everything hanging in various places, and realize half of one of my bathing suits was missing.

Luckily, using the flashlight on my phone, I quickly find it. Bobbing in place in the water, about 10 feet from our cabana.

We have an overwater cabana, with a ladder directly into the water.

Except the bathing suit is bobbing on the “bad side” of the cabana. Remember I said we were on the end? One side was clearer and swimmable.

The other side was seaweed laden and not so clear.

And it is dark.

But the suit is bobbing not too far from shore, and J-man is like “you can totally just wade out and get it.”

But I can’t see without my flashlight.

So I decide to wade out with my phone in my hand and try to reach it.

I make my way down to the edge of the water, where there is a water break I have to climb over with lots of seaweed jammed up against it.

I take one step over the water break and into the water,

And sink up to my knees in muck.

It literally sucked one of my flip flops off my foot (thank goodness I hadn’t taken those off) and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to extract the other from the salty quicksand.

As I’m trying to extract my one foot without putting my other back in the muck and not losing my balance and dropping my phone in, my child is laughing from the deck.

Very helpful.

I finally get free of the sink hole and safely back on shore.

Justin says “Just go around the other side and wade under the cabana to it”

Except it’s dark. And I’m definitely not doing that with my phone in hand. I’m not real keen on going for a night swim and  running into one of the stingrays, nurse sharks or barracuda’s  we’ve been sharing the water with, when I can’t see a thing.

I didn’t like that bathing suit that much anyway.

And now I am covered from toe to hip in nasty, black muck.

So much for bed, I need a decontaminator.

I finally go to bed, assuming my bathing suit bottom with peacefully float out to sea over night to it’s forever resting place.

Except it doesn’t.

It’s still bobbing there in the morning.

I can’t just leave it there to be the welcoming sight to the next guest walking up the ramp to their cabana.

And if I don’t retrieve it, that means one of the workers is going to have to.

And although they are probably much better equipped with long poles and the such, my conscience gets the better of me and I find myself ready to wade back in.

The good news is, Justin was right. It was relatively easy going in from the other side and wading under the cabana.

Especially in the daylight, when I could watch for predators.

The good news is the bathing suit bottom was rescued.

And I leave the island with everything I arrived with.

And a great tan.