I guess I forgot to mention that I made it home from D.C. safely.

Thursday night I slept, off and on. For the last hour before the alarm was scheduled to go off I woke up every two to five minutes. Ugh. Finally, at 5:30am, the buzzer buzzed and I stumbled out of bed.

By 6am I was on the road, driving west toward Baltimore. I left earlier than I probably needed to, but with the traffic gnarls I had seen throughout the week I decided it was better to be safe than to end up sleeping in the airport.

After returning the rental car and riding the shuttle back to the airport I arrived a little over two hours early, which ended up being a good thing since the security lines at Baltimore were a bit longer than the ones in Oklahoma! I’m getting to be a pro at going through the security checkpoint. I wore slip on shoes, no belt, and knew exactly what needed to be pulled out of the laptop bag and placed into the gray plastic tubs. I made it to the gate about an hour before boarding, which was just enough time to settle in, do a little Kindle reading, and listen to some music.

The flight from Baltimore to Denver was uneventful. I had a four hour layover in Denver which sounds bad until you realize (A) I get paid by the hour and (B) I spent most of the time either eating or playing games on my laptop. I’ve had worse paying gigs, for sure. My old high school friend Sarah Hamner works in the Denver Airport, so she was able to swing over by my gate and visit for a half an hour. I was so glad she did as I could feel my nerves building prior to boarding another “express” (read “small”) jet.

Upon boarding, several of us caught the pilots looking at a folded paper map. That right there seemed like a bad sign. As we buckled up and began to taxi out to the runway, the pilot informed us that the weather in Oklahoma City was “borderline”, and that we may get redirected to Wichita. At that point everyone on the plane said, in unison, “Wichita?” I turned to the girl next to me and said, “the minute we land in Wichita I’m getting a rental car and driving to Oklahoma City.” She said that sounded like a plan to her, and airborne we went.

Fortunately for us, the weather in OKC held and we were able to touch down at Will Rogers World Airport as originally planned. Again, nothing of importance to report. I got my luggage, found my truck, drove home and was welcomed by a couple of kids and my darling wife who were as glad to see me as I was to see them. All’s well that ends well.