Road follies
Wednesday was fun -- despite the 6:30am flight, I got a 3-hour layover in Minneapolis, gave Nancy her Christmas present and had a laid-back lunch at an intown malt shop. After an uneventful flight into National Airport (sitting on the left side after dark is usually scenic on southbound approaches), I met ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
geekchick at my hotel in Tyson's Corner. We then went out to a local diner for dinner, then over to Cathy's place with gifts in hand.
Rising the next morning with 3 hours of sleep (for the second night in a row), I headed over to NASA Headquarters, there to work out the details on some earth sciences proposal reviews for next month, and to find out what had happened to our proposal to finish the humans vs. rovers science-return study next summer. Both happened, plus a telecon in someone's borrowed office.
Rushing back to the hotel at 1pm to gather my bags, I took a wrong turn and was then trapped in horrible shopping-mall traffic for 20 minutes. Arriving at the counter in IAD at 2:15pm for my 2:45pm flight, I was told that I wouldn't make it and was rebooked for a 4pm flight. OK. But the agent didn't bother to check the departure times -- all Atlanta flights were delayed 2 hours due to storms down there. The 2:45 flight finally left at 4:30, without me. My 4pm flight left at 6pm. Arriving too late to do anything useful, I headed to my parents' house in Cobb County... stopping for dinner at an old Georgia Tech haunt, The Varsity. For the uninitiated, this is a huge fast-food establishment that can handle several hundred customers at once. It's been there since the 1920s and still has carhop service, replete with metal trays hanging on car windows. The Vidalia onion rings are worth the 3000 miles...
geekchick at my hotel in Tyson's Corner. We then went out to a local diner for dinner, then over to Cathy's place with gifts in hand. Rising the next morning with 3 hours of sleep (for the second night in a row), I headed over to NASA Headquarters, there to work out the details on some earth sciences proposal reviews for next month, and to find out what had happened to our proposal to finish the humans vs. rovers science-return study next summer. Both happened, plus a telecon in someone's borrowed office.
Rushing back to the hotel at 1pm to gather my bags, I took a wrong turn and was then trapped in horrible shopping-mall traffic for 20 minutes. Arriving at the counter in IAD at 2:15pm for my 2:45pm flight, I was told that I wouldn't make it and was rebooked for a 4pm flight. OK. But the agent didn't bother to check the departure times -- all Atlanta flights were delayed 2 hours due to storms down there. The 2:45 flight finally left at 4:30, without me. My 4pm flight left at 6pm. Arriving too late to do anything useful, I headed to my parents' house in Cobb County... stopping for dinner at an old Georgia Tech haunt, The Varsity. For the uninitiated, this is a huge fast-food establishment that can handle several hundred customers at once. It's been there since the 1920s and still has carhop service, replete with metal trays hanging on car windows. The Vidalia onion rings are worth the 3000 miles...
no subject
The onion variety is known for being mild and sweet -- Granex hybrids -- but the weather and soils in south-central Georgia (waves to
And I have my own delay nightmare memories of Denver, but at Stapleton (I stopped flying there after Continental pulled out). One reason that I fly Northwest a lot is that if I get stranded in Minneapolis, I have local reinforcements there ;-).
no subject
And, now I'm going to have to trek that way...you mentioning it the other day was just enough to start a little craving!