The Adventures of Travel

Traveling is always an adventure. But our bigger adventure usually lies in the trip home...when we are at the mercy of an empty seat on a plane and not a clue how we are getting from Point A to B.  This year was different.

I was so excited to have an 11am flight out of Tulsa.  I could actually get a full night's sleep before travel!!! This has never happened before!  However, this was before the two-day (which has now because a three-day) tornado event was to happen.  We left home earlier than planned to head to Tulsa to avoid the storms.  That was a okay. A longer visit with Grandpa is always welcome.

Storms didn't seem to be ramping up like we thought, and then BAM.  Phone alarms.  Tornado sirens.  (Tornado sirens!?  I don't ever hear those where I live, so that was kind of exciting. ha ha).  Grandpa had already gone to bed, so we had to get him out of bed.  Since getting a 90 year old in a cellar was going to be tricky, we knew we couldn't do thinks "Okie-Style" and just watch from the porch and go at the last second if necessary.  So bunker down in the cellar we went. I was on my way out when I remembered Perry! (What kind of guardian am I?)  Thankfully after about 25 minutes it all blew past us and we were safe to come out.  Here are some pics of Perry's first trip to the cellar! (Along with my mom, aunt and uncle, and grandpa.)

I needed to go to bed, but we continued to have alarms going off all night long.  Mostly for flooding.  I was not getting the extra beauty sleep I had hoped to receive.  Then at about 6:20am it all happened again.  Phone tornado alarms followed by the neighborhood sirens.  So we turned on the TV to see if it was necessary to actually go the cellar.  It was heading directly toward us, so I got up mom while my aunt got up grandpa, and back to the cellar we went...in flooding. We were all so drenched!  Grandpa said, "We've got to stop meeting like this!"  Again, so much for that sleep. Here's the tornado we had to go to the shelter for....

Now that we were all fully awake, I had some extra time to get ready to travel.  I waited to see if my flight was delayed, but it appeared to be flying as normal.  Off to the airport Perry and I went.  Immediately after getting through security, my phone sounded.  This time is was United letting me that snow in Denver could be messing up my travel plans. SNOW!? We left 45 minutes late out of Tulsa, and I was fairly convinced there was no making my connecting flight.  Oh well.

Here's the snow as we came in to land.

Since I was on a small plane, United unloads you OUTSIDE at Terminal A.  It was a whopping 33 degrees as I stood in my short sleeves and flip flops waiting on my gate checked bag. BRRRRRR

After grabbing my bag, I bolted to the next terminal via many escalators and a tram and barely made my flight! (Only to sit on the plane for an hour before take-off so they could de-ice the thing.)

After leaving Denver, the rest of my 20 hours of travel was mostly uneventful--just how we like it!