Travels of Mark and Pat: Wednesday-Thursday, January 3-4

We nomads have had quite the travel adventures since I updated the blog. Here's how yesterday unfolded:

Wednesday....we left for West Palm Beach airport around 9 AM. Came upon a very serious accident about 5 miles from airport. Pray there were no fatalities, but both cars were seriously damaged. We had been driving thru some heavy rain at the time and came to complete stop for
30 minutes

We had planned to both fly standby on United but the airport was very busy and there were delayed flights and uh oh.....not looking good as the board said our flight was delayed 1 hour and then 2 hours and even more.  It all started with leaving Chicago late cause of snow showers.     West Palm had fog and later, strong winds, so flight was diverted to Miami. So.......Mark flew Spirit later in the afternoon and I was able to get on United but left almost 4 hours later than planned.

There was a confrontation at our gate between a disgruntled passenger and the sheriff + 2 other United employees.    Not sure but don't think he was allowed to board our flight!

And I've never seen so many dogs at an airport and several were barking, so....there was plenty of activity while waiting.    We were in different terminals for most of the waiting time.

Initially we were to land at 3 PM, had planned to get our rental car and drive to Bloomington, take the Campbell's out for dinner and spend the night. But....

We arrived at O'Hare about 1/2 hour apart and Mark's sister, Karen was there as she had flown in from San Francisco. So, instead of driving to Bloomington, we gave Karen a ride to Dixon (her friend was planning to pick her up so this saved her a trip on a very cold night coming from Rochelle). We enjoyed the ride catching up with "Auntie" Karen and stopped at the DeKalb Oasis for supper and finally arrived in Dixon for the night at 9. We were really tired but thankful we both made it. At one point, I was going to drive back to Daisy and Mark would go on to IL and then have to drive truck back by himself. But standby and United came thru!

So......enjoyed a good night's sleep but bummed we missed visiting with Anne, Patrick,

Liam and Connor.

Thursday...we left Auntie's at 7 AM on another very cold morning. Despite the brutal temps, it was beautiful with all the snowy fields, pinkish sky and snow-covered IL river. We stopped in Princeton (where Annette is from) for quick breakfast and onto East Peoria. While Mark dealt with John, salesman and Chris, finance guy, I took our rental car back to Hertz and then Ubered back to

Uftring Ford.

Sat in the truck with John going over all the bells and whistles and finally 2.5 hours later, we were on our way to Bloomington. Picked up the boys and off to storage where they were very good helpers getting our stuff loaded into truck. I debated (very briefly) leaving my ear muffs, gloves and scarf in storage but then....no way, not in this brutal cold!! The boys were our very first passengers. Stopped at Jimmy John's for lunch, took Liam and Connor home and tah dah, at 1:15, were heading south.

With all the salt on the roads, our pretty ruby red truck didn't stay "red" very long - what a mess but that's how all the vehicles look and still much too cold to wash
(car washes not even open these days).

Loved riding and checking out all the features while Mark drove and then I drove 1.5 hours and he did the same.

Tonight we are in Brentwood, TN and it's 15 degrees. We drove till 7:30. Had a light dinner at hotel and happy to be in for the night!!!