2010 WDW Princess Half-Marathon Marathon of Posts Vol 1

And so I heard it through the grapevine that I have been neglecting my blog during this month of not one but two PerkyMommy Only Trips.

Sorry about that...

Life in February was really hectic. Really. In one month I was incredibly ill (for me anyway,) and out for the count for a week, followed by multiple scouting obligations including but not limited to camping in the FREAKING COLD DESERT and then rushing into a lot of time researching, shopping for and suddenly, BAM, purchasing a tent trailer. I have never pretended to be a person with a high level of energy. Never. Nev-ver. That was a lot for me.

Before I knew it, I checked my calendar and, to use one of my favorite phrases: HOLY CRAP. It was almost time for the Princess Half Marathon in Orlando!!

UGH!

The week before I had to leave I was not only busy with regular commitments, I had to scramble to get my house ready for GrandmaChurchLady and AuntieDoc to come help out, pack, schedule the shuttle to the airport, pack, etc etc etc. When it was all said and done, my house was a mess. I just let it go. I had a choice to drive myself bat guano crazy or just let it go. I picked the latter. The night before departure, my bags were packed and I found myself going to bed before 11 pm. I was shocked. Shocked as in, "oh, dear, this can't be right. I must be forgetting something super important." I fell back on the advice I heard before: You are an adult with a credit card, and held faith that I had the most important things packed.

The first morning of my adventure I awoke early to be ready for the Super Shuttle. Typically, Doc and the boys drive me to the airport for early morning departures but in this case I figured I would spare them. The boys had to be at school by 8:15 to avoid consequences from their teachers. Even if it was my fault, SBS would be penalized. That sucks. The idea of that bothered me too much, but considering my long layover, I really hoped to avoid sitting too long in the airport before my flight.

Yeah, big mistake. We all would have been better off if I had sucked it up and left a few minutes earlier.

Super Shuttle driver called to say he had a pick-up 20 minutes, without early morning traffic, in the opposite direction. He was sure he'd be to my house only 30 to 45 minutes after my original pick-up time. First off, I wanted to be picked up on time to be on my way to the airport, you know, on time? And secondly, can you say "Rush Hour Traffic"???? I can. Apparently, Shuttle driver could not.

I have no desire to continue reliving that morning. I made an unhappy, non-perky phone call. The dispatchers called me back. In the end, he was almost an hour late from my pick up time and then we hit even more traffic once on the freeway to the airport. In other words: Everything I said to him on the phone about No you won't be able to get back in that amount of time and no, we won't be able to get to the airport in that amount of time, was right.

Cute, Perky, and (most of the time) Right. That's ME. Except that whole cute and perky thing was out the window long before I got to the airport.

I got through security. I got my shoes on. I got up to the beautiful sign that pointed the way to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Ahhhhhh. All airports should have a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in them. Heck, all cities should. My city should. My neighborhood should.

:sigh:

With my iced nonfat latte in hand I went off in search of a sign with my flight listed on it, as none of the monitors seemed to have my flight listed. I walked for awhile and only saw a lot of Southwest signs so I finally asked a Southwest clerk for directions. I had the wrong wing of the terminal. And so I walked back. I walked and walked. Back through the wrong wing's shopping areas. Back past the Security check. And back to the gate that was directly opposite of the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

Uhm, oops?

It would seem that there is really only one gate at ONT airport for US Airways and it is the gate closest to the security check. Nice, huh? So much for that whole supposed IQ thing.

I could not get the wifi to work on the PerkyMommyLaptop so I sipped my latte and chatted briefly on the phone with DaddyDoc. WooHoo.

Once in PHX, I found a Mexican restaurant and scoped out a table with near an outlet! I ordered diet coke and a very uninspiring quesadilla and used the Free PHX WiFi.

Here's what I think:

I'm sorry, Sky Harbor, you might be the "America's Friendliest Airport" and you might have free WiFi but if I had a choice of where to go for a long layover, based on my not-at-all-extensive-flying-history, I would have to vote for Dallas-Fort Worth. Yes, it's huge. Yes, I have to pay for WiFi. But the food choices are just a lot better. The Mexican restaurant had hardly anything on its menu - something like 4 entrees? And it wasn't that good.

It's all about the food.

The time did seem to fly rather quickly and before long I was off to my gate to run into swanie. We grabbed a couple of sandwiches from Staryucks to make sure we would have something for dinner on our flight before boarding for MCO. It was really nice to fly with someone from PHX to MCO because, and anyone who knows swanie and I in real life will be so so so shocked to learn this, but we spent the entire flight chatting.

And it made sense that I would fly with swanie because, along with her back-up posse which included my husband, mother and sister, it was her fault I had to go Orlando...