The Journey

I'm posting this a couple of days after the actual events described. Sue me, it's hard to motivate myself to write a blog while I'm on a quasi-vacation. Be grateful you're getting one at all.

We left the house at around 7:15am into a -2 degree Kansas City day and dropped Olive off at Jill's place where she would later be picked up by the dogsitter (Jill's mom), Meadow having been safely delivered to my pals the night before. A drive to the airpot and economy parking followed which allowed us another delightful opportunity to stand outside in sub-zero temperatures while we waited for a shuttle to the airport.

Did I ever tell you I hate to fly? It's an irrational fear of course. I'm more likely to die driving a car or, yes, running a marathon than I am in a plane crash, but naturally that fact is no help whatsoever when a bout of turbulence decides to pepper the plane. Oh, I'll do it. I'm not paralyzed by it. I don't break out in a cold sweat and hyperventilate, but I do waste a proportionally greater number of my allotted total of heart beats inside those tin tubes.

Despite my massive build up, in an equally vast anticlimax, the flights were both pretty smooth (still hated them), and I was pleasantly surprised that although we went through the notoriously choppy skies around the Denver area, where we connected, today's air was calm and virtually turb-free. We arrived in Phoenix about 40 minutes late, still dressed in jackets and scarves, and headed to the rental car shuttle where we tasted open Arizona air for the first time, and led to the first 3-4 hours of our stay being dominated almost entirely by weather-related conversation. It's remarkable to me as a native Brit used to pretty similar conditions throughout the whole country, that one place can be so huge as to be able to wake up in negative temperatures in one area, and then step off a plane to 70 degree temperatures in another.

The drive to the hotel, located in the suburb of Chandler, was a breeze and we arrived, starving hungry, at around 5ish. A quick trip to PF Chang's later, our appetites satiated, and we were back in the hotel watching a news story about - would you believe it? - a plane crash. "Miracle in the Hudson" it was already being dubbed. A heroic Captain, both his engines taken out by, of all things, geese, managed to land his plane in the Hudson river in New York, saving every single one of the crew and passengers, almost all of whome escaped with either minor injuries or no injury at all. It's funny how news stories can act as bookmarks to an event in your own life sometimes. I will always associate this event, and Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, with my first marathon. I'm just pleased it was a happy ending. I have no time for bad omens at this stage.

I know. Me, me, me. Right?