Surprise Post

Well, you're probably all surprised to see me posting right now...me too! Turns out the magical pony gods of travel truly have it out for me. They must have seen my poor suffering husband (alone, at home with 5 kids) and decided that I should be punished for daring to leave (they might have also heard my maniacal laugh when I walked out the door Friday morning, lol). I made it to the Springs without a hitch, but the second leg of my trip has been nothing short of disaster. The flight from CO to Atlanta was very bumpy, not quite as scary as my flight to Denver last month (I don't think I blogged about it, but I really thought I was going to die on that flight!), but not comfy and I don't fly well even when there's perfect weather. My seatmate probably thought I was a nut job (I have been practicing using yogic breathing on scary flight so that I don't burst into tears or embaress myself in some other way!). Of course, the reason the flight was so bad is because a huge thunderstorm was headed in meaning I got stuck at the airport for an unexpected 6 hour delay while we waited for it to blow over. That meant that I didn't arrive in Charlottesville until 2am. Charlotteville has be the tiniest airport I have ever seen, even smaller than CO Springs or Buffalo, so when my luggage didn't show up, natch, that meant there was no one there to help me. It is 0230 in the morning, I am exhausted and crabby and the entire airport is empty except for me! Finally the security patrolman found me standing in front of the Delta counter (I refused to leave until I found someone to help me with my luggage) and went back to find someone. I filed my baggage claim and the guy assured me that my bag would be on the next flight out in the morning from Atlanta. Fine, I think, that means I will have enforced extra sleep since there is no point at getting up at the crack of dawn to go to the conference with no clothes.

After taking a cab to the hotel, I fall asleep instantly to this thought (and I'm staying at the Doubletree so at least I got a warm cookie for my trouble!). Today I wake up and wait until 11am (the flight was supposed to land at 1030) before I break down and call Delta. I am on hold for almost half an hour, using up copious amount of my cell phone battery (charger is in my luggage, of course) where I proceed to learn that somehow my baggage went from the Springs to Denver and was supposed to go to Atlanta and then on to Charlottesville from there. Unfortunately the lady on the phone is unable to determine whether my bag is still in Denver or if it made it to Atlanta. It is truly, truly lost...along with all my toiletries, clothes, work stuff, etc. Oh, and they have no idea when I'll be getting it. Yip-ee. So I am now stuck at the hotel in my stinky clothes sans undies since I showered and refuse to put on dirty underwear from my 13 hour trip yesterday (after I worked nonetheless)* I did manage to walk over to Wal-Mart (I love the convenience of the East Coast!) and score some underthings and necessary toiletries to tide me over since it is looking like I will be lucky to get my bag at all today. If I don't get it by 6pm tonight, I will probably break down and go shopping for an outfit for tomorrow. Delta is giving me a whopping $50 for my trouble, but that is barely going to cover my Wal-Mart shopping spree much less having to buy a whole new outfit that is appropriate for the conference I'm supposed to be attending right now. I was able to get a hold of someone at the conference to let them know I am here and plan to attend tomorrow, so I should (hopefully) not run into any trouble when I show up tomorrow morning. But, with my luck so far, that does not bode well :(

So does this kind of stuff happen a lot when you are traveling so much? I am really traveling much more now (on average 2-3x a month), but I seem to be running into such bad luck almost every time I travel. I'd love it if those of you who travel frequently could chime in because I'm really starting to think there is some kind of curse on me!

*I know, I know, TMI!