Holiday Travel Fun – Eastbound Edition

Holiday travel season is in full swing, and I was right smack in the middle of all the action yesterday.

FLIGHT DELAYS

If you’ve seen the news (or follow this blog), I’m sure you know that Denver got hammered by a winter storm yesterday.  Accumulation was between 10-14 inches throughout the city - - so crazy!

When I woke up on Thursday morning at the Courtyard, I found a United Rebooking notice.  My friends at United had cancelled my flight to DC, and rebooked me on a later flight to Richmond via Newark.

It was 5:30am when I saw this email, so I did what every smart girl does.  I reset my wake-up call for 8:00am, rescheduled my seat on the airport shuttle for 9:00am and rolled back over in the bed.  When I woke up at 8:00, I checked my flight status to find that the new flight had also been delayed… with a new flight time of 2:10 pm! 

I’d already woken up twice and seen light by this point a few times…. It was time to get up.  I had plenty of time, so I decided to do what was good for my bod.  I hit the hotel gym!

The gym was REALLY nice.  Two ellipticals, two treadmills, and a recumbent bike - - But the room had lots of natural light and I could see all that snow that had fallen.  There was also a flatscreen TV with all the news coverage of the storm.  When I was in the gym, the news reported nearly 150 flights had been cancelled in Denver that morning.  So crazy.

Mine was still a-go, so I worked out steadily for about 45 minutes and headed upstairs to get ready for this day of travel.

MY GEAR

My carry-on feels like it weighs a million pounds, but I also travel like I’m planning to entertain a 3 year old from 30K feet.  I had my Macbook, my iPad, my Rebel, some knitting, an iPod, and two magazines.  REALLY??? A girl has to have options!!

Heavy, but worth it!  Lots of options!

WHAT TO EAT

I always try to make sure I have healthy snacks with me when I fly.  So, in addition to the 20 lbs in electronics, I had a Fiber One 90 Calorie Peanut Butter and Chocolate Bar, a baggie of Cinnamon Burst Cheerios (uneaten from breakfast), and a packet of Cherry Berry dried fruit.  Keep in mind, when I got to the airport, I added to the bag.  I was now toting all of the above + 1 bag of Pirate’s Booty + bottle of Dasani + packet of Skinny Cow Dreamy Clusters.  I certainly won’t go hungry, nor do have ANY excuse to grab a hot pretzel or random candy bar. 

I did need to grab lunch at DIA, and treated myself to one of my favorite lunches.

Panda Express' "Panda Bowl" with Broccoli Beef and Mixed Veggies - 220 calories!

Dinner was at Newark in the tiny A Concourse, so I had to take what I could get considering it was almost 10pm EST.

  

AIRPORT BUZZ

I got to the airport right about lunchtime.  Security was busier than Thanksgiving, but fairly mild overall.  

Everyone seemed to be in a fairly pleasant mood.  No huge Customer Service lines or massive amounts of people sleeping in the terminals (I always think that’s a sign of a rough day.) 

Instead, most of us were just waiting around for flights and hoping to get to go.  When I got on my first flight, how about I was in a row by myself.  Not only was it an EXIT row with extra legroom, but I also had it all to myself.  Just me and my Booty.

Just Me and My Booty

My flight to Richmond was delayed by about 40 minutes, so that gave me time to eat.

I arrived in Richmond at my brother's house at about 1:15 AM.  So happy this travel day was over, and so happy to be spending the holidays with family.

So happy to see this sign, even though it was delayed

I hope everyone else made it to their holiday destinations safely.  It's Christmas Eve Eve... let the fun begin!!!