LA Excursions

After a week in LA (some images below), I finally made it home Saturday evening, though it was about 25 minutes later than anticipated as my plane was delayed in the air so President Bush could land at GSP (he was speaking at Furman University)—his presence prevented all planes from landing until after he had cleared the airport. The funny thing is that the flight from Atlanta to Greenville is only a 27 minute flight, but this was in keeping with the rest of my flight anomalies from this excursion:

- On the way to LA, while waiting in the terminal at GSP, I sat a row away from Huey Lewis, who was on his way to Washington, DC.

- In Cincinnati, I volunteered to take a later flight to LA for a flight voucher, and then learned the later flight included a 1^st class seat—on a long flight, that is clearly the way to go.

- The landing at LAX was interesting as we had some flap malfunction on the plane, so we had to land with quite a bit more speed than we were supposed to. Thus, they had the entire runway lined with rescue crews and fire trucks for our landing, and the fire safety inspector actually had to verify that we weren't on fire before they let us taxi to our gate.

- On the way back, flying to Atlanta, I ended up with an entire middle row of seats all to myself…nothing like stretching out in coach.

- Our landing in Atlanta was like riding a roller coaster. Several people in the back near me became ill, including one poor woman who sprinted to the bathroom. Also, whatever was causing the ups and down during the descent happened again right as we landed, and we hit with enough force that a couple overhead compartments opened.

- And then, of course, the President Bush delay.

All in all, quite an interesting trek to Los Angeles. And while I thoroughly enjoyed my time in LA and the workshop I was attending—including the insane amount of work we did as part of that workshop—it was nice to get home and get back to some semblance of normalcy. Though, in my absence, I believe Nikki and the Bean grew a little—her belly button is sticking out a tiny bit further than when I left.

Anyways, in the coming weeks we have more doctor visits (as they are getting more frequent) and various informative courses and hospital visits. We attended our first class/informative session the week before I left for LA and found out a lot useful stuff about the delivery process, the delivery room, the hospital, the likelihood of me also receiving an epidural (which is not looking likely) and so on. Additionally, we must ready our home as the "Bed & Breakfast" season is upon us, with our revolving guests beginning in just a weekend or two: Travis and Sherry, then Andrea, Brenda, Keenan, and Kyra, then Nancy and Laura, and then a few weeks through July, and then the Bean—a permanent guest—followed by more and more company planned all the way until at least October when Aunt Pam, Uncle Roger, Matthew, and Jordan visit after their trip to the Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte. Yes, the Bed and Breakfast season is quite near.

(Top: driving into downtown LA; middle: beautiful tree on campus of Mt. Saint Mary's College; bottom: me presenting at workshop)

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http://www.clemson.edu/~hodgson