A whirlwind trip

Every time I visit my parents it's a crazy, crazy trip. I never have enough time so I am pretty much in motion the entire time. This trip was no exception.

I left the Burbank Airport on time at 8:05am on Wednesday, flew through Denver and arrived at Logan Airport a little after 6pm. My dad picked me up and he is walking so well! I told him that I hadn't seen him fully extend his leg in I don't know how many years. Very cool! I got my bag pretty quickly and then the fun began.

My dad wrote down the parking area where he parked as M-17. He said that after he parked he took the elevator down one level so we took the elevator up one level. We get out of the elevator and we look around and my dad paled and said "Tash, I think the car's been stolen." I immediately swing into reference mode, asking questions about if he's sure of the floor, is he sure he's near the elevator, etc. My dad is skeptical, but I make him indulge me by visiting every floor. We go up another level to the 5th floor. No car. We go up to the 6th floor. No car. We go up to the 7th floor. Big surprise here - no car.

I turn to my dad and ask him if he's sure he went down a level to the main floor. At this point my dad has no idea. So we go down to level 2 and lo and behold the car is there!

The ride home is without incident. I catch up with my parents for a couple of hours over pizza (I think it's been a couple of years since I've had pizza!) and we debate the various ways and routes to get to my appointment the next day.

Thursday morning I get up at 3:10am California time. Not too difficult. Oatmeal, shower, read the best and most appropriate horoscope ever for the type of appointment I am going to have and then I am off by 7:55am. The drive takes me about 45 minutes and then I spent about 25 surveying various people over which building I should be looking for. Lots of opinions, fortunately I followed the right person's opinion!

My appointment went well!! Always hard to tell but I got a couple of signs during and after that it went well. It starting snowing around noon and by the time we went to lunch about 3 inches had already accumulated. It was less than 5 miles from the restaurant back to the main building and it took like 45 minutes because apparently the State of Massachusetts closed at 2pm putting everyone on the road at once.

After some driving and car operating suggestions from my parents I set out at about 3pm. The traffic is unreal! It's snowing pretty hard and it's a little hard to see the signs. I get lost twice trying to find the I-95. The I-95 is a parking lot. I never went over 10 miles an hour and for the most part I think I went 2 miles per hour the whole time if I was moving at all. It was brutal! I have to say Massachusetts drivers were very kind and helpful and I loved that everyone took the opportunity to slam their iced windshield wipers against the glass at the same time. I passed the time catching up with my favorite radio station and texting and calling various people in my cell's address book. Good times.

I finally had the brilliant idea to take Rt 3 through Walpole, Winchester and Arlington and home through Belmont Center. The streets were actually plowed (as opposed to I-95 which was absolutely not plowed) so traffic moved pretty quickly. I made it back to my parent's house at 8:45pm. That's right - a 30 mile trip took 5+ hours!!! My brother had been waiting since 5pm so we ate and did some Christmas present exchanging and then he had to go. He had to work on Friday so I only saw him for an hour. And I didn't get to see my parents at all really. I got to bed at like 10:30pm Massachusetts time and I was exhausted.

I got up at 6:10am Massachusetts time on Friday and went for a 20 minute run (I needed it), followed by oatmeal and the fastest shower ever. Then quick, in the car, dropped my mom off at work, quickly stopped at CVS for some snacks and trashy magazine and off to the airport.

Usually when I fly out of Logan I get there two hours early and by the time I check my bag and go through security I have 5 minutes to get to the gate. Not this time. I checked in and went through security in 15 minutes so I had 2+ hours to kill. The flight to Denver left late (note to airlines: it's way more efficient to seat the people in the rear of the plane first then those in the front; it makes no sense to seat window people out to aisle people!) so I sprinted through Denver to catch the connecting flight to Burbank. I got to the gate with 10 minutes to spare. Flew to Burbank and arrived at 4:15pm.

As I was standing at baggage claim I called my mom and said "I'm at the airport. I think I went somewhere because I am waiting for my bag but I have no idea where I went." She laughed but I am totally serious. It was such a whirlwind trip that I am sort of fuzzy on all the details. I just know that I was in motion practically the whole time.

And interesting aside - it took 5 hours to go 30 miles in Boston and 45 minutes to go 17 miles in LA. Who'da thunk LA traffic would be faster?!?!