...that my road home is just not to be smooth sailing.

I posted recently about my rocky trip home from Houston, thanks to American Airlines.

So I switched to US Airlines when I booked my trip to Orlando this past weekend to visit K, D and JJ. All went well on the way out, but coming back last night...well, not so much.

They dropped me off before 5:30 PM for my 6:30 flight back to DC. All went well, security was fast and efficient. The 6:30 flight was delayed until almost 8 PM but you wouldn't know it if you looked at the board at the gate. I guess US Air thinks if they don't post the delay, no one will notice that the flight is actually delayed.

Anyway, when we finally did take off, all went well. That is, until we got near DC. I could tell we were stalling near landing, trying to find a window in the horrendous weather that DC has been having. Soon enough, the captain decided to go for it, until he decided not to go for it, and we ended up in Richmond VA. "Welcome to Richmond" the flight attendant said, as most of us on the plane just laughed at this remark which was, I guess, supposed to make us forget that our original destination was DC. Anyway, as we sat on the plane, we wondered, maybe Richmond was not welcoming us.

Finally they decided to come back on the PA to say we were going back to DC, when the weather cleared. At about 2 AM, the captain came back on and said we were going for it.

OK, great, I'll be home before you know it....not so fast.

We arrived in DC about 2 AM and upon de-planing, I stopped by the ATM to get cabfare...I could almost feel the nice bed I'd soon hop into.

Not so fast...so did about 500 to 1000 other people who had been diverted and then re-routed back to DC.

So I spent the night, or at least until 5 AM, on the floor next to the Metro stop at Washington Reagan National Airport.

I can honestly say that I'm a DC-ite now!

I walked into my apartment at 6 AM, about 13 hours after I left Orlando. Oh, the joys of fast, lightning speed air travel!

After a few hours sleep, I got up, showered and headed off to work. I'd make it there so I'd only have to miss about 3 hours, easily made up the rest of the week.

Not so fast...the trains were running really crazily today. One didn't know which track carried which trains and when they would come...a Metro "expert" said that if it was her, she'd just go to the place in between the 2 tracks and watch which trains go where and then run-like-hell to make the connection...thanks for your input, dear lady!

I finally got to work about 12:30 PM, only to find a note on the door posted "due to inclement weather, this building has no power until 6 PM today"....oh the joy of it all.

All I could do at this point was laugh!