January is not my favorite month. My birthday is in January. I remember shopping as a teenager with Mom for a birthday present. Everything was picked over and left over from Christmas. It was too cold to think about Spring. Just kind of a BLAH month! But Mom did a good job of always getting me something special. I remember a cute white cardigan and red pleated skirt. I remember getting an Organ one year - YES an Organ. I remember the year I finally passed the CPA exam - a cute new outfit celebrating the test results and my birthday!
Each year I really don't want to remember my birthday - I just keep getting older. The things in the store are still picked over and left over from Christmas. The January inversion lingers longer and the older I get the less I like Winter!
So a few days after my birthday, we headed out to "sunny" San Diego. The trip was a disaster from the get go. We got caught in the freezing rain storm - six hour delay leaving SLC.....
Waited for a crew from Boise - delayed the flight an hour.
Got a new crew - boarded the plane - waited in line for de-icing. As the pilot announced "We need to turn this popsicle into an Airplane." Waited for a runway. The airport got shut down. We re-boarded the plane - waited in line for fuel - waited in line for de-icing - waited for takeoff.
Finally arrived in San Diego - weather felt good - we headed to Old Town for some Mexican food - it was good!
Headed to our hotel in Chula Vista - which was about 3 miles from the Mexican border.
Found Parker and his team - at the La Quinta in Chula Vista - they had been able to practice at the Olympic training center on Thursday afternoon (his plane took off on time)!
It started to rain. The rest of the weekend practices were in an "Indoor facility" - fake grass - buzzing lights - cold and dingy.
I started to get sick.....ended up full force "sick" by Saturday.
Too rainy to head downtown to San Diego on Friday - ended up eating at a CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) in Otay, CA.
Saturday went shopping at the Las Americanas mall - right on the border - didn't really find anything.
Headed back to Chula - then ventured downtown for some seafood.
Found an out of the way Restaurant "Mitch's seafood" - a little dive - but the food was good!
Sunday headed for home - our flight left on time. We arrived in SLC at about 1:00 and then....it started to snow.
Parker's flight was to get in at 4:15 - so we headed to the airport waiting in the Park & Wait lot. His plane indicated "pickup". We did not hear from him....which was quite unusual. Waited for another 40 minutes - then Evan went in to find out what was going on. No planes were landing - and the Information Booth Lady (who Evan said was chugging on something other than water from her water jug) - couldn't believe we would trust the sign! Did you know that the Park & Wait lot is totally bogus - it is not correct - Parker's plane was being rerouted to Las Vegas!!!!!
We finally heard from him - they had gotten all the way to SLC and then could not land. Circled the airport three times - quite turbulent - he said he had his barf bag ready. They got to Las Vegas - gave them an estimated departure time - they made them get off the plane because there was something wrong with the airplane. They waited for another plane to get to Vegas from Phoenix and finally landed at SLC at 10:51 p.m. and did not get off the plane until about 11:30.......
So like I say - January is not my favorite month - but another one is now in the Books!!!!!
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