I made it back!

Oh I am exhausted! Last Tuesday I woke up at 4am and drove two hours to the airport. Luckily that time of the morning there isn't much traffic and I made it with time to spare. You know, flying used to be fun but any more it's just like going to the livestock auction and you are the cow. They push you through and squish you into these ridiculously small seats. They temp you with food only to then tell you that "I'm sorry ma'am this tasteless, cardboard like pizza will cost you extra" Good grief why didn't I bring food. I pass on the cardboard pizza and just get by with the weird crackers they give out for free. So with coffee and crackers in my stomach I descend into Denver for a layover.

I don't know what happened to me in the last few years, but I just don't take motion as well as I used to. As we started to descend into Denver there was a lot of turbulence. I tried to keep my mind on things other than my stomach. Mind over matter... but all I could think of was whether or not there was a barf bag in the seat back in front of me. I check, nope no such luck. I look around for something else to barf into. My purse.. oh no I can't do that. Dang it.. stop thinking about it.. it's getting worse! I found myself doing Lamaze breathing to keep the nausea away. When did I start hating flying?

I made my connection in Denver and safely landed at my destination three hours later. My colleague and I went to pick up our rental car. We ended up with a purple PT cruiser. These are strange little cars. We got in and Claudia was going to drive, she did her normal checks. Lights.. check... wipers.. check. We backed out and started to leave. In order to leave the parking garage there was a gate and a guy had to check our documents to make sure we weren't stealing the car. Claudia went to put her window down. "Where is the window button?" I checked my door.. no button... I clicked the lock button.. no that's not it. We must have looked pretty funny as we frantically searched for the window button because the man in the booth yelled " IN THE CENTER OF THE DASH" through his laughter. nice..

When we got to the hotel it was really dark, Claudia clicked the lock button on the key chain. The headlights came on. Ok.. so we waited, thinking they would turn off. One minute, two minutes.. what the heck? Not wanting to risk a dead battery in a strange city we opened the door and turned on the lights, then off again and locked it from the inside. We never did figure out the lights on that dang car.

As we walked through the front door of the hotel we see..... huge plastic drapes.. dust.. oh jeez they were going through a huge remodel. Great. Luckily they put us up in some updated rooms on the top floors away from the noise.
On the second night my colleague went out to dinner with a relative of hers. My boss gave me directions to a mall that was supposed to be close by. I didn't write them down since it sounded so easy to find. I thought I would take the car and go find the mall. I felt I had followed the directions well, but I found myself on a road for what seemed like far to long. I was traveling through a residential neighborhood. It didn't feel right. I decided I better turn back and go the way I came. I made a left at a cross street, there was a police car sitting along side the road so I decided not to do a u-turn, or turn around in front of him. For fear I would look suspicious. Because you know the cops are going to wonder about a thirty three year old business women in a purple PT cruiser turning around on a quiet neighborhood street.. jeez. Anyway I thought I could do a series of left turns that would take me back to the road I was on and then I could back track to the hotel. WRONG. I ended up on a different road in rush hour traffic in the dark. Great, just great. I'll be driving around for hours in a strange city. Lucky for me I have a pretty good sense of direction and ended up on the same street that my companies office is on. Hallelujah! I found my way back to the hotel, went to the front desk and asked for a list of restaurants within walking distance.
I called hubby and Bug every night. Every morning Bug would wake up, rub his eyes and say "I miss mommy". But hubby made it better by taking him to see the Bee movie Friday night.

On the way home they routed me from the North East to Houston and then to the North West. Yes, that's right, I zig zagged my way across the country. I truly believe our employee travel department wants to kill me. After a three hour flight to Houston, a two hour layover and then a five hour flight home, I had to drive another two hours. Last Friday I woke up at 6am Eastern and didn't get to bed until Midnight pacific. The next morning hubby and I drove the two hours back to the airport to pick up my Step-son who flew in for Thanksgiving. Did I mention I am exhausted. The thought of getting into a moving vehicle makes me nauseous.
The good thing is, I really like my new boss. I think I'm going to like my new job once they are done training me. I'm back home and so thankful!