My love/hate relationship with flying

I've been a bad blogger...

Can't believe I haven't posted in almost a month. I won't use the lame excuse that I've been so busy because the truth is, I just haven't had the inspiration to write. Happens to everyone. Might happen again.

But a blogger friend of mine recently said on her blog that she needs to get away from the "I must post something" attitude and realized that she only has to post when she has something to say.  Honestly, why should I waste people's time just because I think that I'm witty and amusing? 

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Well, I'm back in the saddle and I've been flying more lately. I'm always excited to fly somewhere since I get to see friends or attend an event, but the reality is that flying can be exhausting when you have to worry about catching flights (not to mention catching germs) and getting up really, really early to catch morning flights.By the time I get home from a trip, I look like I was riding on the outside of the plane.

www.nataliedee.com

I had my first trip flying out of the Rochester International Airport and it was SO different from flying out of MSP.  Parking at the Rochester airport is $8.00 a day with the maximum of $48 weekly. My parking at MSP was $48 this past weekend.  Rochester has four gates and MSP has 117 gates. When I flew out of Rochester, my time from parking my car, walking into the building, checking in and then going through security and walking to my gate was almost ten minutes. It takes me ten minutes to find a place to park at MSP. I'm just sayin'...

On my flight in January, I learned a new term, "Lap Child." I guess Delta is trying to condense what they have to say. So instead of saying "if you are traveling with a child who sits on your lap.." they have taken to referring to a lap child. It just sounded strange. 

I also learned that when booking flights, be sure to give yourself enough time between flights if you're making a connection at someplace like, say, O'Hare! My return flight home from Detroit connected in Chicago and I had only 30 minutes between the flights. I got a bit panicked when I realized that there was a good chance that I would not make the connection and it was the last flight out of Chicago to Rochester. For my own mental health, I got an earlier flight.

This weekend on my United flight to Albany, NY via Chicago, I was thrilled to learn that United Airlines serves Coke products. When I asked for ice for my Diet Coke, I was informed, "we won't have any ice until we get to Chicago."  Really?  We just left Minneapolis with sub-zero temps and you couldn't get any ice there? 

I have one more flight this month to Cleveland. Hopefully, I won't have to worry about the lack of ice because I'm pretty sure it will be tough to get the ice through security.