Yesterday

Yesterday morning's run seems like so long ago. The Landing Course is closed on Mondays for maintenance, so I could just run right out back, hop onto the cart paths and run 6 miles along the winding concrete way back to my parent's house without even having to think about a route. Very nice. And even better, Kristen decided to join me for the first few miles! That doesn't happen very often, so I was extremely happy for her company! She's just getting back into running, so I let her set the pace and we enjoyed chatting as we ran along the first 6 holes before she headed back and I headed on. Thanks for running with me Kristen! The rest of the run went by at an easy pace. Saw 9 bluebirds, one red-headed woodpecker and heard the bobwhite whom I've heard the past few runs but forgotten to mention. It was a nice, if muggy, morning to be out, and a good end to a fun summer trip to my parent's. It was a great trip!

Getting sprayed by Sam with the hose after my run (and yes, she's not wearing any pants :-) )

We headed out to the airport around 10am, and the first leg of the trip went fine. Once we got into LaGuardia things started to unravel. First it was a delay in our flight, by 4 hours! We kept ourselves busy eating, and playing with the the IPads they had out in the waiting areas.

Airport fun

Although I had checked into the other flights to Portland, both of which were full, when we first arrived, I hadn't thought to actually check at the gate. For some reason, I decided we should, just to see if there happened to be any seats. There weren't, but the man at the desk put us on standby saying there just might be seats due to so many other delays on other flights. So, we stood around, waiting, hoping. That flights also got delayed. More waiting. Then our original flight was cancelled. I waited as we moved slowly up the standby list, fretting and groaning and sweating and swearing. We ended up getting the final two seats (!) on the plane only to have them ground us right as we were boarding because of an accident on the runway. There were a few frantic phone calls to Ryan to figure out alternate plans in case the airport didn't open up again, but in the end, our plane somehow managed to get out even as they were saying all (or most) flights would be cancelled for the night. Hurray! Thank god. Sam was a wonderful traveler through it all, asking a lot of questions but never complaining. I, of course, did my fair share of swearing in front of her through the ordeal so if you hear her say 'oh damn' anytime soon, well, you know why!

The second we got on the plane, she fell right asleep, exhausted. We were so happy to land in Portland, see my bag come through the baggage claim carousel and have Ryan there to pick us up. What a crazy day of traveling! Of course, when we got home, Sam said, "but we missed dinner," and had to sit down to have a bowl of rice before finally going to sleep at 11:00 :-) Ha.