And then the rains came

I was foolish to think that the trip home would be any less exciting than the trip to Cincinnati.

We knew when we left that there was talk of a Nor'easter moving in while we were away. I kept hoping it would go away.

All weekend, all of the easterners were discussing the weather. But still I held out hope.

I held out until Sunday morning when we called the airline and learned that our flight had been canceled. It was worse. From the size of the storm, we weren't getting out until Tuesday or so.

I have traveled enough to know that once you're booked on another flight and at the airport, you end up parked in the terminal camped out hoping to be selected for a flight. I had visions of a painful 48 hours ahead.

We had one hope left. Several of our training partners from Jersey had driven out. They were planning to leave on Monday. Maybe they had room for us. We waited anxiously to meet up with them.

It turned out that they only had room for one person. This was a problem. But one with a potential solution. Two other guys were on their way out of town at that very moment and there were just the two of them in a Ford Taurus.

Someone got the driver on the phone. He hadn't left yet. Even better, he was not just willing to come by and get us and bring us to the airport where our car was, he would wait until we finished training for the morning.

We ended up spending our entire Sunday in a car (only one stop!) driving into increasingly worse weather. But we got home.

And I learned something. Never sit in the seat behind the smoker. You end up getting ash all over your jeans.