The Never Ending Journey

Well I departed Maple Grove a little after 3 today to catch a 5:10 flight to Detroit and from there to Fort Myers and then a short drive to the resort in Naples. Seemingly simple, right? If that were the case then I certainly wouldn't be sitting in a DUMP of a Best Western somewhere on the outskirts of Detroit in a town called Romulus (and have been told NOT a safe place to walk). I surely also would not be preparing to go to bed wearing my clothes thankful that I at least packed my contact case and glasses in my carry on. I would also not be cursing Northwest for forgetting to give my my "complimentary" overnight bag or myself in my tired state for also forgetting to ask for this. Nope if this were a seemingly simple trip this would all be a bad dream. But it is not. . .

You see we were on the plane (FULL plane) in Minneapolis and were pulling away from the gate. I distinctly heard a squeaking noise and found it odd. Suddenly we were stopped and the captain was telling us the ground crew was hearing a loud squeaking noise. Upon investigation it was discovered there was a worn break pad and it was rubbing(?) on the tire so we needed a new tire. We had to de-board the plane and in the end the plane got a new brake job and tire on this particular wheel. I don't want to complain about that because given you hit the runway for a landing at well over 100mph brakes are important. But this meant we missed our connecting flight in Detroit. Initially they tried to tell me and Bob (our company President traveling with me to the conference) that the soonest flight they could get us on was 9:00 PM tomorrow night!!! Insane. I finally convinced the attendant to locate an earlier flight on another airline and we got rebooked. However I still questioned this so I whipped out my Blackberry and looked at NWA web site myself. I found a flight at 7:00 AM that gets us to FL by 11:30.

So now this girl needs to go to bed. I can't wait to see what I look like in a few hours when I wake up to finish my trip. Thank goodness for sunglasses!! :-)