What a day!

I began today in Detroit at the oh-so-excellent Embassy Suites over in Southfield. What a great place, especially if you show up for each evening’s manager’s reception. My presenter and I knew there was some snow in the forecast, so I kept an eye out on our departing flights all day. Just around 2:30, only fifteen minutes before she let out for the day, I come to find out my two flights for the evening were canceled. Grrrreat. However, a quick call to my manager gave me an opportunity to get on an earlier flight going through Newark to get to my destination at a reasonable hour.

We get to the airport, I return the rental car, and get booked on another airline just in time to get my bags checked and go through security. Then the fun begins.

Switching from my canceled flight with US Airways to a new itinerary with Continental, at the Detroit airport, requires a terminal change, which means I had to sprint outside and catch the next shuttle available. I get there with less than ten minutes to spare before the baggage check deadline and get through security with no problems (or lines, for that matter). I have just enough time to grab a quick sandwich from Wendy’s before rushing to the farthest terminal, only to find the plane is delayed, but in-transit.

An uneventful flight into Newark was a pleasant surprise. Not so pleasant was arriving to find my connecting flight was delayed an hour. Not too terrible, but not great considering the new departure time was 10:00 p.m. with slightly more than an hour’s travel time. All seven of us passengers that didn’t give in and make the 2.5 – 3 hour drive from Newark to Harrisburg had to sit in the back three rows of this small prop. plane in order to balance out the weight. We must’ve sat on the tarmac waiting in line to de-ice for at least another half an hour before taking off.

Finally we get to the Harrisburg airport, which is much nicer than I had imagined. As things end up, the airline lost my personal luggage (the tech. case showed up alright) and, after waiting forever to talk to someone about that, I was the last passenger in the airport. At this point, all taxi cabs and rental car agents are gone. Totally gone.

After calling a few cab companies that were all closed due to the snowfall, I find one that had a single guy working that didn’t mind coming to pick me up (he wasn’t even supposed to be working the airport route). With the snow and dark roads, we eventually made the twenty-six mile drive to get me all settled in my hotel room by 3:45 in the morning. What a day! We’ll see if anyone shows up for the seminar in a few hours, especially considering the estimated 10” of snow expected by morning.