My fun trip home.

I woke up at 5 Pacific to take Kate to the airport for her flight home. I got back to the hotel at 6 and watched crappy TV until 7:30, at which point I got up and returned the rental car, planning it so I would get to the airport in plenty of time for my 11 o'clock flight. I did. I got there at 8:15 (still pacific) and waited for 3 hours.

First they delayed boarding until noon. I got a snack, but figured I'd eat on the plane. As soon as we were all seated on the plane we were informed of bad weather in Philadelphia, and that we had to push take-off back to 2:30 Pacific. We sat on the tarmac until our 2:30 takeoff.

At 10 PM, EST now, we tried to land in Philly but it was covered in thunderstorms (VERY cool to watch from the plane, BTW). Running out of gas, the pilot announced we'd land in Baltimore to wait out the storm and refuel. We landed in Baltimore at 11:00. A gate was ready for us at midnight, but an unidentified plane sat in the way and didn't respond to radio requests to move. At nearly 1 we docked, refueled, and had the toilets pumped out so we could use them again. Filing a new flight plan took nearly an hour because of some computer problems, and we took off for Philly at 3 AM.
At this point I hadn't showered in 40 hours, or eaten in 10. I slept for 1/2 an hour on the tarmac in Seattle.

We landed in Philly at 3:30, and I waited nearly half an hour for my baggage to come off the carousel. Kate, who had sat in the Detroit airport while her connecting flight was delayed for 10.5 hours but still beat me home, picked me up at 4. I got home 18 hours after I'd left my hotel, 12 of which were spent on the plane.

The Philly airport looked like a refugee camp. People sleeping EVERYWHERE, as I assume all flights out that night had been canceled. It was a mess.

But hey, the trip itself was great! Lots of pictures to come...