So it starts when I'm heading to the airport - Some truck lost it's tread and I managed to hit it at 60ish mph. It knocked out the cowl around one of my driving lights, and I'll have to get Subaru to fix it (it's a road hazard, I paid the extra for that coverage that goodness).
My plane was generally smooth except they didn't serve food (is this common these days?) and it was an evening flight 5:30 - 8:30.
Then my hotel doesn't have a reservation for me, but they find me a room. Just after I check in the power goes out - I'm glad I brought my flashlight. After it returns a minute or two later I wander downstairs to get something to eat. It's about 10:30 local, but my body is telling me it's 11:30 and I haven't eaten in the past 12 hours.
Because of the power outage the kitchen can't cook with their gas stoves (?!) is what I'm told - so I can have a $10 salad if I want it. The internet is also down thanks to said power outage.
I ask where I can get a hot meal around here, (it's Dallas Ft. Worth airport) and am told that a cab would be about $50 round trip to anything in the area thanks to a $17 airport toll for them. My hotel is on the airport grounds, and therefore nothing is walkable to any fast-food or otherwise.
So I take the shuttle to the car rental places - the first 2 places are rented out of cars (WTF?! You think they'd have more than enough) and I don't have a reservation so I'm SOL. The third place has LARGE cars only - so now I'm rockin' a Kia Sodona. Fear the mighty mom-mobile.
Then the pouring rain starts with lightning, so I'm navigating to anything with big lights on that looks like food in blinding rain, in a strange city, at night.
I found a Jack in the Box, got a value meal, and headed back to the hotel after a few laps on the freeways trying to figure out just which exit would get me on the access road and not onto a different freeway. It would have been much easier if one could read the signs, but alas, remember that pouring rain? It basically made signs unreadable until you were up close and personal with them.
I called my admin assistant this morning and she yelled at the hotel and make life nicer.
The takeaways:
- Kia's aren't that bad, but I miss my car.
- Corporate cards rock.
- I hate rain.
- Travelling alone isn't all that fun anymore.
More to come later. |
