Delayed

We travel a lot.  Some of our travels are for fun and vacation; some are for business.  Yesterday was a business trip.  Charlie and I were speakers at the Home-Based Travel Agency/LeisureWorld Conference in Atlantic City. 

We woke up at 5:30 am to start a long, long day of travel.  Our flight wasn't until 10:30, but we had to take Liesel, our Schnauzer, to our dogsitter, then muddle through rush-hour traffic for almost 30 miles back to the airport in Nashville.  No problems.  We got to the airport at our required "two hour prior to departure" time of 8:30.  Zip, zip, zip.  We were through security in record time.  Great way to start the day.

Then, things started to fall apart.

About 45 minutes prior to our scheduled departure, an announcement was made that air traffic control in Philadelphis had given us a ground hold in Nashville because of weather.  We now would not depart until 11:00 am.  At 10:30, our original scheduled time of departure, we had another announcement.  The President was in Philadephia, and we now were delayed because we could not land there until air space had been cleared for commercial aircraft after his departure.

Finally at 11:20 we boarded our plane.  This time we sat on the tarmac in Nashville, again awaiting clearance from air traffic control in Philadelphia so we could land when we got there.  At noon we finally left.

Great.  We would only be two hours late, which, of course, made us late for the trade show that we were supposed to be in that afternoon.

The flight was uneventful UNTIL we reached air space coming into Philadelphia.  Then we rocked and rolled.  Literally.  The tornado watch we had in Nashville the day prior had turned into storms that were hanging over Philadelphia.  So, we bumped and grinded our way through this air space...for an hour...as we circled Philly waiting to land from all of the air traffic that was backed up from the morning delays.

Finally, we landed in Philadelphia two hours and forty-five minutes late, and we still had an hour and a half drive to Atlantic City.  Oh, well, the best laid plans.......

If you didn't know, the game, Monopoly had all of the streets named after the streets in Atlantic City.  We drove down Atlantic Avenue to our hotel, the Trump Taj Mahal.  And, this morning, we crossed North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio Avenues to get to the Convention Center on Michigan Avenue.  At one point we were on Baltic Avenue.  Our hotel has Virginia Avenue on one side and Boardwalk on the back overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.  As we were walking on the Boardwalk tonight, we both had flashbacks to The Sopranos and the scenes of Tony looking out to sea as he stood on the boardwalk.

Tomorrow we head back to Nashville, and with any luck the President will stay home, the weather will be clear, and we won't be delayed again.