Home and Back

I survived my first and only visit home without staying! It felt great to be back in Iowa. You honestly don't realize what "home" is until you're gone for a while. I spent time with the family and saw a few friends while I was back. Luckily, I was able to stay until Sunday (Easter) before leaving.

Anna and I coloring eggs. As you can see in the background, our house is being remodeled. When isn't it?






After leaving Iowa, I was stuck in Minneapolis for the night. After taking the wrong shuttle to the wrong hotel, which was an honest mistake because there are two similar ones in a five mile radius, I managed to get to the correct hotel.

I snagged the last open seat on this morning's early flight to New York City. Unfortunately, there was not enough room for carry-ons, and I had to check-in my luggage at the gate, which you never want to do when flying stand-by! After landing in NY, I missed my connection to D.C. Helpful hint: remember that any "shuttle" flights you take from LaGaurdia are accessible by a shuttle bus that run every 15 minutes from the main terminal.

As I'm waiting for the hour to pass, I realized my luggage had probably gone on without me. While I wanted to make sure where it was, no one could find it. The first leg of my trip was through Northwest, and the shuttle was Delta. Although the companies have merged, their systems are still separate. Delta couldn't access the information, and NW couldn't find it.

Luckily, the luggage was found and put on my flight from NY to D.C. Whew. The Delta and NW employees were extremely helpful, and I'm grateful for their patience with my persistence because I didn't want to leave until I knew where it was.

In less than 24 hours, I have been in Iowa, Minnesota, New York and D.C. I also went to work for the remainder of the day. Nap anyone?