Back to Work

I survived my trip. My ears were fine. No tornados. Good time had by all. Sat in a few helicopters (including one formerly owned by Idi Amin -- ewww) and the cockpits of a 737 and fighter jet at Southern Illinois University. Went on an impromptu drive through Kentucky. Watched my friend's mother fall on her face and get rug burns the first morning I was there. Also saw parts of her I didn't want to see as her dress came up, but thankfully, she was OK.

We went to St Louis the day before I left to see the arch. We took the riverboat cruise and watched a movie on the making of the arch and a National Geographic IMAX movie on Lewis and Clark. If I were by myself, I would have gone to the courthouse and church, but my friend isn't a good walker and they wanted to get out of town before the ballgame ended. They dropped me off at the hotel at 4:30 so I took the MetroLink to Union Station to do some shopping. It was pouring down rain. I ate dinner at a Hard Rock and the guy next to me was drunk off his ass and hitting on me. The bartender kicked him out. Forty-five minutes later, I get back on the train and there he is, who knows how long he'd been riding the rails trying to figure out where he was supposed to be. It was 7:15. The next day, I had to check out at 11:00 and my plane wasn't until 2:30, so I checked my baggage and went to Union Station again for some items for the staff (what a good boss). I was supposed to fly to San Francisco and then to Seattle, but they switched me (with ten minutes to spare) to a straight flight to Seattle. Unfortunately, the early flight out of Seattle was full so I had to kill 6 hours in the airport. Don't think that I didn't notice that the book that is next in the series that I'm reading, the one that I looked for two weeks before on my way to California, was now at the Borders in the airport. Only because I had ordered it on Amazon and I knew it was waiting for me at home. So, when I finished my books that I brought at 7:30, I had to walk around. I had already hit all the stores in the new Marketplace in the airport on my last layover. I finally made it home at 11:30pm and, despite my confirming three times that my luggage would arrive even though they switched me in St Louis, it didn't. Luckily, it was only delayed by 12 hours and I was able to retrieve it the next day. That's the second time in 6 years that I've checked baggage, I'm usually a very light traveler. Although, nice Alaska, I did get some miles out of it. Saving up for Walt Disney World next year.

Looks like I'm home for the rest of the year. My dad's on his way to North Dakota today to pick up his next project -- a Model T he bought on ebay. I wanted to go with him, but it's a good thing I didn't. One employee in labor today and the other having knee surgery tomorrow.