I'm too OCD for my hotel room

The picture isn't crooked...the shower fixture is!

This bothers me to no end.

Keeping my cool...

Last night was one of the more frustrating travel experiences, not bad, just frustrating. We were scheduled to leave the hospital at 4:00pm but didn't get out of a meeting until at least 4:20. Every minute that ticked by increased my anxiety!

When we finally did get out my NeverLost (Hertz's GPS system) said it would take 2 hours to get to Boston which would put us at the Hertz drop-off at 6:30, not enough time to get to my 7pm flight.

So I spent the whole 90 minutes speeding and anxious but did get to Hertz around 6pm. Fortunately I'm able to just park my car and run, they'll email me my receipt. We took a bus to the terminal only to find they closed one of their security check points and there were extremely long lines to get to the gates.

I was actually about to get through security somewhat quickly because they were only letting people through with flights at 7pm or earlier. Other people were not so happy about this and started to get in the faces of the TSA personnel (fight #1).

When I did finally get through I had just enough time to get to my gate at the end of the hall before they started boarding. But while I was fast-walking I was able to watch (fight #2) someone open a closed gate door and yell to the US Airways gate agent to "Check his damn bags". The agent called security.

When I did get to my gate I found out they were boarding by rows from back to front instead of zones. I was zone 2!! and seated in Row 6!! When I did finally get on the plane there was no where to put my luggage. So they made those of us with luggage go all the way to the back of the plane while we waited for everyone else to get situated so that we could then get off the plane and check our luggage. While we were waiting for other people to clear out of the guys I was with started complaining about the entire airline industry to the flight attendant.

The poor flight attendant! Clearly she can't fix an entire industry! Even if she does agree that it would be better for people to be allowed to check their luggage for free and leave space available in the overheads!

Apparently they had just gotten off a flight that had been delayed by 4 hours! They wanted to offer the passengers cookies just a token. They need expressed, written permission from a pilot to even give out cookies!! They can't even open the box containing the cookies. It's locked and wrapped in tape which they have no scissors to cut - another thing they need to get from the pilot. And when you finally do get to the cookies they are wrapped in plastic with a form and large warning sign letting the attendants know they can't open it without the permission I mentioned earlier. That's an awful lot of work for approximately 60 calories!  I commiserated with her and then had to go check my luggage.

The rest of the flight was fine, fairly uneventful, just how I like them! Except my new Flight Attendant friend came over at one point to thank me for being accommodating and then offered me complimentary wine. Naturally I accepted and she gave me 2 (little) bottles! (Does anyone else find it ironic that they can't give out cookies but can give me 2 bottles of wine?).

Finally I got to DCA, where apparently they got 3 inches of snow! I totally missed that memo. After waiting for my luggage I got out to the taxi stand and was at the front of the line when a taxi pulled up, cutting another taxi off. The driver got out of the car and started asking people who was going to DC. The Taxi Stand Attendant got upset and told him to get back in his car, causing the driver to fly off the handle (flight #3) and start yelling at the attendant, including some not very nice names which will not be repeated here! The problem was prolonged because now no one wanted to get in that cab!

Anyway. I got home. I got some Thai food. A lot of anxiety but everything worked out.

Here's a phrase you don't hear every day...

"when I'm at a death scene..."

So I just left the hotel bar where I had dinner. I ended up sitting next to this older gentleman who was a former RN and now works in forensics for the state. We were discussion our travel behaviors - ie I eat fish/pork/beef when I'm traveling and white meat chicken when I'm home, or I'll have a glass of wine with dinner when I'm traveling but not when I'm home because it's hard to open an entire bottle of red wine for 1 glass - the man made a comment to the extent of "When I'm at a death scene and someone says drinking is the cause, the first thing I check is their liquor, if there is dust, it wasn't alcohol related."

I love hotel bars...

Not what I expected New Hampshire...

What a difference a week makes! Last week was pretty busy on my end with trips to North Carolina and New Hampshire. This week I have no plans at all (other than a haircut today) and I'm ok with that!

Thursday I flew to New Hampshire for my first meeting with a new client.  I had never been to New Hampshire. I don't think I realized it would be quite as rural as it was. I flew into Manchester which is a fairly small airport and has very few direct flights from DCA. The hospital I was meeting with was actually in New London, NH, about an hour away but there are no major chain hotels near the hospital so I elected to stay in Manchester at the Four Points by Sheraton. The hotel was in the middle of a bunch of big box stores. The GPS said "I had arrived" when I was outside Sam's Club and across the street from Walmart. But a quick call to the hotel informed me I just had to drive up next to the Harley Davidson dealership and I would see it.

There wasn't a ton in the area to eat so I ended up at the hotel bar. I find that I prefer to eat the bar rather than the hotel restaurant. The menu is usually the same and it's slightly less awkward to sit alone at the bar than alone a table. Plus the bar usually has better people watching...especially this bar!

There was no one in the bar or restaurant when I arrived but shortly after I ordered my meal a woman walked in and ordered a glass of Chardonnay and sat down with a stack of scratch-offs. She was quite chatty and I quickly learned she waiting for her son to finish hockey practice. She drives a bus for a retirement home and never finished college, her husband is a botanist with a PhD. She has a son whose birthday is February 14th. They had his birthday at the hotel this year in the in-door pool. You can rent the pool for $25/hour and get pizza's for $10/pizza. They did the whole party for less than $200 last year!  When the manager came in she started chatting with him about having the party there next year and kept chatting with him like they were old friends and she knew a lot about him. She said things like "How many hours do you sleep a night?" "How many hours do you drive a day?" "How late do you work?" "Last time I was here you were dating anyone"..."actually I was"..."oh, well my friend was slipping you her number"..."I know, I still have it"...Did I mention the bartender was a creeper? Other topics of the night included male PMS and if they should hire a male bartender.  After a second glass of wine (and no food) my new friend left to go pick up her son.

The next morning I had to get up early to drive from Manchester to my meeting in New London. I was planning to meet my colleague at 7:45 (our meeting was at 8:15) as he was coming from another hospital in NH. The ride was easy and picturesque. I especially enjoyed all of the signs for the NH State Liquor Store and Rest Stop. One would think those two things shouldn't be housed together...but apparently one would be wrong...

 (*The larger building is the liquor store, the smaller one the rest stop)
As I neared the hospital it started snow. It was just enough snow to be pretty and not enough to actually stick, which I consider to be the perfect amount of snow. Although apparently the hospital is near some ski resorts and I'm hoping to work that into a future trip, so I'm sure I'll be hoping for some snow then.  I arrived early (naturally) only to hear from my colleague that the road he was driving on had been closed. As he had been driving down the road a pickup truck in front of him stopped, turn around and flagged him down, letting him know the road was closed. Unsure if this was just something a random person decided my colleague pressed for more info. Apparently there was an accident and the road was in fact closed. Unfortunately, said random person, did not know where New London was! So my colleague meandered through the state hoping to arrive in time for our meetings (and fortunately, he did)!

Following our meetings I drove to Boston for my flight out. Initially I was planning to fly out of Manchester but I wouldn't have been able to leave until after 5pm. Fortunately I was able to drive the 2 hours to Boston and still get out earlier, landing in DCA at 4:30. I will be flying in and out of BOS next week when I go back for meetings on Monday and Tuesday.  Hopefully the driving remains fairly uneventful!