Yet another Illinois adventure

It's only been an evening, but already Illinois is yet again proving to be adventurous for Fragile X lab GRAs!  Our flights were nice and smooth this time (well, except for the massively hard landing at O'hare!), but getting to our hotel was somewhat less smooth.  While driving on a four-lane highway, 3 teenage boys decided to jaywalk across the street.  But they didn't simply cross the street.  They walked out into my lane, and stayed there.  As I approached, they walked toward us and very slowly sidled out of the way (into the other lane).  Even after honking and glaring at them, they didn't seem to think it a bit strange to be meandering among the highway lanes.  A few miles later, things got more frightening.  The highway had filled up since we were approaching the business district, and this meant that cars were frequently making turns into and out of lanes and driveways.  The driver of one particularly large pick-up truck decided that she should be able to turn into our lane even if we were right there.  So she did.  And I swerved into the other lane.  Thankfully there was no one there.  I am beginning to wonder if this rental car is invisible!

Something about the Midwest

What is it about Indiana and Illinois that mean we often have crazy trips??

This time, we managed to remember that the family lives very near the Central/Eastern timezone border.   However, this time we nearly had a repeat of the disastrous Illinois trip from summer 2010.  The problem began when, for some reason, our layover in Atlanta became short.  The flight from KC was on time - despite leaving late - so we thought we had enough time to get from our arrival gate to our departure gate and even have time for a pit stop and a brief break.  We thought wrong.  After making said pit stop, we walk to our gate, only to find that they are no longer 'boarding' - they've 'boarded'.  We were the last two on the plane, and there was still 20 minutes until our scheduled departure time!  Moments after we took our seats, the plane pushed back from the gate.  We then proceeded to sit on the tarmac for about 30 minutes while we waited for clearance to take off.  We arrived in Evansville on time, but quite jostled from flying over the tornado storm system.  I went to get our rental car (which ended up being a brand new 300 with 103 miles!!), while my colleague waited for the suitcase.  And waited.  And waited. Yep, you guessed it.  Delta had made our layover so short that they couldn't get the suitcase from one plane to the other before we left.  Uh oh.  My colleague and I made the necessary arrangements to have the bag brought to our hotel after it arrived on the next available flight.  Well, that flight got delayed 2 hours because of the tornado storm system. Rather than stay up past midnight, we asked the front desk to call us once the bag made it.  When the call finally came at 1:30am, we didn't care what time it was, we were just glad the flight hadn't been canceled!  The next morning, we retrieved the suitcase and the rest of the trip went off without a hitch. 

Local Visit

Our visit to one of our Kansas families went very nicely today.  We were training our newest travel GRA, so the family's house was a bit crowded, but they didn't seem to mind.  This child is adorable and cooperative, so even though the family can be difficult to track down, it's not hard once you get there.  It did feel strange to do an assessment on Friday and not have to fly there or back!  I had a trip and still had my weekend!

New Bern, NC

This weekend's trip was ... interesting.  I'm not sure if there's a better word for it or not. 

We traveled to a town on the North Carolina coast named New Bern.  It's the birthplace of Pepsi, and during our time there, we got to visit the location of the original pharmacy where Pepsi was first served.  I got to buy some Mountain Dew swag! =)  In addition to that stop, part of what made this trip neat for me was my current novel.  I've been reading the very popular Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.  During this trip, I finished the fourth book (Drums of Autumn) and began the fifth book (The Fiery Cross).  In both books, the main characters are living in a relatively uninhabited area of pre-Revolution North Carolina.  The closest minor town is Cross Creek, and the closest major town is New Bern.  The governor of North Carolina is Governor William Tryon, whose palace is a notable historic landmark in modern times.  So cool!!  How often does it happen that you read a historical novel describing a relatively obscure place, then end up visiting that place while you're reading about it without making explicit plans to do so?? 

New Bern, like most of the East Coast, had been hit by hurricane Irene last month, so we'd postponed our trip to allow the family some time to recover.  Thankfully their house wasn't badly damaged.  I won't go into details about the visit itself, but suffice it to say it was exhausting - mentally and physically.  To make a long story short, we were not able to make our originally scheduled return flight, which meant we had to wait for the next one.  Unfortunately, Delta only has 2 flights per day from New Bern to Atlanta.  We were scheduled to take the second one on Sunday.  So, we found ourselves stuck in New Bern for an extra day.  It wasn't as bad as it could've been - the weather was beautiful and we were able to gather all the data we needed from the family.  We just hadn't planned on an extra day away from home.  Thankfully, we were able to make a quick Target run to get some necessities.  We did make it home safely Monday evening, but for me it meant today's slate of classes was much tougher since I'd been up much of Monday night finishing up the homework I'd planned to have all of Monday to complete.

I guess our trips had been going too smoothly lately.  Here's to hoping my next two trips go better than this one did!

Illness in Illinois

In case you were wondering, it hurts very badly to fly when your ears are plugged because of a cold.  Descending is the worst.  And then you look silly because half the time you're trying to yawn as big as you can on the off-chance that your ears might clear and the rest of the time you're shaking your head or grabbing your ears.  One plus: you can't hear the shrieking toddler who is two rows away.

Despite my discomfort, the double trip to Illinois went very well this weekend.  We worked with two wonderful families and a couple sweet kids.  The suitcase made it to Peoria (see my post from Feb 2010) this time, and there were no other mishaps.  I drove a Nissan Cube, which was interesting.  I'm definitely not a fan of the way it looks from the outside, but it was quite spacious inside, and the cup holder to the left of the steering wheel was perfect.  My colleague enjoyed pointing out the sights to me as we drove from Peoria to Chicago (she went to undergrad nearby).  I particularly liked the wind farm.  I've seen modern windmills before, but never so many in one place!  After a successful visit and only a 1-hour delay in O'Hare, I made it home in time to see the second half of the KU game.  Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

Blizzard Day

Well, apparently I managed to miss posting in all of January.  As far as work goes, it wasn't terribly exciting for me.  My colleagues did have a couple interesting trips, and I did have a good time working with our family in Topeka, but no major snow dramas or anything.  Personally, I got to be a bridesmaid in the wedding of my best friend from middle school.  We've known each other for nearly 15 years.  I'm super happy for her!!

We're welcoming February 2011 in with a serious blizzard.  KU is closed today, so I'm attempting to be productive from home.  At least it's warm and cozy here.  I'm sure the lab would be absolutely frigid today since it's quite chilly on warmer days.  It's been snowing for several hours, but the wind is blowing so hard it's difficult to tell how much snow we've actually gotten.  The 1/10 inch of ice is definitely there, though! 

Newest GRA's first visit

My Halloween weekend consisted of going on a trip with our newest GRA.  It was her first real assessment and she'd never flown before!!  I was very glad there were no surprises in terms of travel.  The assessment itself went very smoothly.  We got to see a cute kid with a wonderful family and beautiful house in the suburbs of Chicago.

Thankfully we were only going to Chicago so it wasn't an especially long or bumpy flight.  Turns out she loves flying!  She also enjoyed staying an extra day to see her family.  She hadn't been home since she moved to Lawrence, so she was very excited to see her family and dog and house and such.  I could relate - I remember feeling that way about the same time last year.

On Saturday we finished in plenty of time for me to make my flight, so after I dropped her off with her family I went shopping at the Woodfield mall.  I needed some dressy clothes for my next adventure: my first conference!  It was nice to have a couple hours to wander around such a huge mall, especially knowing I could buy something if I liked it!  It helped, too, that I knew I could put anything I bought in the lab's suitcase to get it back home, so space wasn't an issue at all.

All in all, it was one of the better trips I've had lately.

Business Trip #2

Had a whirlwind business trip to Rochester, NY, on Friday and Saturday.  We landed in the Rochester airport Friday afternoon, and then flew out again less than 24 hours later.  The assessment went well, and the flights were smooth, despite a 3-hour layover in Chicago.  I ate in an airport restaurant for the 1st and 2nd times!  Been pretty tired today, but glad I can chill out with football.

I'm finally getting sick for the first time this season, and it seems that I'm skipping the cold stage and going straight to bronchitis.  I've got too much going on in the next 6 weeks to get sick!