a vacation? or a nightmare??

so today . . . i am back online! at least temporily.

i am in orlando, florida. we are here because rollie is a delegate to our church's global convention where they will conduct business pertaining to the general church for the next four years. and i am along for the ride. and what a ride it has been!

it started wednesday morning at 6:00 a.m. when we left the house for the airport. i did not sleep much tuesday night--you know, lots of stuff to do before we left. but i was ready to go at the agreed upon time. we arrived at the airport without incident, got in line to get our e-tickets, and that is where the trouble began . . .

rollie put his driver's license in the machine, but it tried to give him tickets for 6:30 p.m. instead of 8:30 a.m. he tried using his credit card--same results. he tried using his confirmation code--again, the wrong tickets. so we were directed to customer service.

customer service had a pretty long line--we should have known . . .

finally it was our turn, and we were told that our flight from seattle (scheduled to leave at 1:30 p.m.) had been cancelled, and we had been reassigned to the red-eye flight leaving at 10:30 p.m. they had also changed our flight from lax, so we wouldn't be trapped in the seattle airport all day. had we known this, we would have just spent the day at home and come later, but somehow we missed this very important notification. diandra had already left and by this time was probaby almost home. so we just decided to take the earlier flight to seattle and spend the day there.

the airport in seattle wasn't crowded, which was nice. and i found a plug in to power my computer. so we read, we used our computers (although not the internet! can you believe an airport without free internet?!?) we ate, and i slept.

yes, i slept. in the airport. i became one of those people who sleep in airports. i've always been one of those people who mock the people who sleep in airports, but now i have become one of them. i was just soooo tired. there is a picture, but it is on rollie's phone, so you are just going to have to imagine it . . .

the airport food was actually pretty good, but expensive. the burger king food was exactly the same as what i get at home, and yet it cost twice as much! AND i couldn't even refill my soda!! although, rollie won a free cheeseburger from some game they had going on. so i redeemed it and figured it was worth more if i used it on an airport burger king burger, since they cost more . . .

it finally became time to board our late night flight. we were both looking forward to sleeping for the next four hours. so we settled into our seats, i got out my inflatable pillow and my polar fleece blanket, and then rollie saw the sign--"seats in this row do not recline." you have got to be kidding me!! the plane was full, so we had no options. i lowered my tray table and slept on that, but poor rollie couldn't get his head onto his tray table, because the guy in front of him was sitting in a seat that DID recline. and he reclined it.

at 7:15 a.m.(orlando time) we staggered off the plane and went to retrieve our luggage. i sat with the carry-ons and tried not to sleep. rollie watched for the bags. his first bag came off. his second bag came off. my bag did not come off. he was soon the only one watching the same few bags going around and around on the luggage rack. and that is when we learned that my bag had gone to san francisco--no one really knows why . . .

so we arrived in orlando late, tired, and without my luggage--which for some reason had decided to visit san francisco--and hot. because even at 8:00 a.m. it was already probably 90 degrees and steamy.

we found our hotel, slept for a few hours, went out and got some food, and slept some more.

and that was the end of day one. well, actually day two, since day one was spent in the seattle airport. since then we have done lots of eating and sleeping. but there have been a few more adventures as well . . .