10 June 2012 3am Spokane

There's nothing like a trip to Spokane to make me thankful for all the Company's sites I can reach by driving. These Spokane trips often start harmlessly, like taking a photo of the Cleveland Zoo guitar at the Cleveland Airport.

The normalcy leaves at some point such as when a cross current hits the plane as one is landing and the pilot is lucky to keep the jet from flipping. Then as you sit on the tarmac and are told the storm is too big to have crews on the ground. They have all been called indoors until the storm passes. Unfortunately you learn later on that the crew had already unloaded the bags, but weren't allowed to take them in. I wonder if the Delta included the extra weight of the passengers soaked belongings when they were transferred to other flights...

There's still hope were getting off the plane, but those clouds don't look good.

No, we're going to be waiting this one out inside the jet. Too bad our bags won't as they were already in a cart on the tarmac.

There's not many food options at 10:30 on a Sunday night in the Minneapolis Airport.

If anyone has been wondering, this is what Minnepolis Airport looks like at 11 p.m. on Sunday. It is a great place to be if your cell phone, Ipod, or laptop needs an outlet to recharge or if you are a loner and like to have no one seated within a few hundred seats in the gate area.

Last, but not least, the title of this post. Once I landed in Spokane and negotiated with the car rental company so that I was only paying 50% more for the rental rather than three times the reservation price ("You weren't here at your scheduled arrival"), I drove the half hour to the Holiday Inn Express Spokane Valley to find the desk clerk had done a late night disappearing act, but her dog was sleeping happily in the lobby. I wasn't able to get her to the desk and neither was the person at the 800 reservation number. The hotel manager saved the day. That was until the desk clerk told me my reservation was for the next day (Monday). After booting my computer and showing the reservation, she finally said "Oh, that was for Sunday evening." Not bad, I'm in at 3:30 and could get a few hours sleep before heading to the office... At 4:00 a.m. (7:00 in my normal time zone), my Iphone rang with news there had been a recordable safety incident at an eastern facility. :-(