I just flew in from KC and boy, are my arms tired...

No, seriously, we're both tired. T. I. R. E. D.

We had decided to fly by Midwest Airlines for two reasons: they have nice wide seats (though it looks like their new planes will not be this way, bummer for Kevin...to be honest, I feel like Alice in Wonderland in them) and they fly directly from NY to KC. Unfortunately, even though we bought our tickets about 5-6 weeks in advance, the choice of flight times (the days were fixed based on the Natl Flute Assn convention schedule) was greatly limited, and we ended up with a 7am Monday morning flight.

So miraculously I got up at 4am without being a complete bitch (I am NOT a morning person; if you have any doubts, ask Kev for a few prime stories) and we got out to the airport and except for the fact that they offer basically no food (!) at MCI airport things were going just fine. Even that was not a big deal, because another good thing about Midwest is that they offer actual meals for sale, not just crappy snack items. So we had a decent breakfast on board, and were well on our way to seeing the kitties by noon.

Well, the weather can be a real fucker-upper. About 1.5 hours into our 2.5 hour flight, the captain gets on the intercom and tells us that we're being put in a holding pattern because of some bad weather at LaGuardia, but not to worry, he took about an hours worth of extra gas and even with a delay we should get there with no problem.

30 minutes later, he has to go back on his story because apparently the freakish weather has caused serious delays, and we've got to get refueled before it's likely we can approach the NYC area. So off to Pittsburgh we go. Which is sorta funny because the only other time we've been to Pittsburgh was exactly 2 years ago with the first NFA convention I exhibited at. Anyway, we're told we'll be disembarking because the pilot is not convinced that it will be just a refueling, that though it could be just a short overly we'd be better off in the airport than stuck on the plane while we likely wait out the weather.

We were told not to wander too far, but we did manage to buy some lunch at least. And I took a moment to call KAKe to get a first hand NYC weather report--besides being completely surprised to hear from me, she told me that yeah, the weather was severe just a little while ago, but the sun has come out. "Yay," I think, "we'll be home by 3pm the latest." Why I was so optimistic, I can't say exactly, but overly optimistic I most certainly was.

Shortly after calling KAKe, they had us reboard. Yay!
Shortly after reboarding, they parked our plane off to the side of the runway. Boo!
About 20 minutes later, the captain says we're taking off. Yay!
About 20 minutes after taking off, the captain reports we're back in a holding pattern. Boo!
We look out the window and Kevin notices that our circling pattern has us going right over a pair of nuclear reactors. Eeep!
Nuclear reactors?? We're not even out of western Pennsylvania! Boo!

About 20 minutes into that circling holding pattern, I started to feel motion sickness...headache, queasiness, like that. Boo! So I did my best to get some sleep and not toss up my lunch.

The plane eventually landed at about 3:15 NY time. Just so you have a reference, it was originally scheduled to land at 10:30am NY time. And as luck would have it, the Grand Central was completely backed up, and we didn't get home until about 4:30. It took a few hours to get rid of the motion sickness completely, and even though we took a nap at around 6pm, we're both tired. Kev was asleep before I started posting this. And now to bed, too. More on KC in the next few days.