Why Are These Children Smiling?
Aunt Jan sent us a Google Video link, and it was so funny that the kids laughed and laughed! It's a poodle playing volleyball - the doggie looks a lot like Atticus did when he was more puppyish.I miss the kids. Sometimes when I travel it just grips me so hard - I miss the darned little redheads.
I'm in Indianapolis, along with the Homecoming folks (Mich vs Indiana - I've lived in both states so I can't take sides...) AND, more importantly, the entire town's been overrun with the Future Farmers of America. It's not our first run in with the FFA - the kids posed at the Minnesota State Fair in the FFA booth - but who knew there were so MANY of them??The entire airport was overrun - each one with a matching blue Eisenhower jacket with their state embroidered on the back. It was surreal! It took forever to get the luggage, to get to the rental car counter - and then I had to wait for 3 busses to go by until I got on one to get to the car. Oy.
I drove all the way up to Carmel from the Airport to the Hampton Inn (I was looking forward to a relaxing evening of printing out handouts and swimming!), only to be told that they'd overbooked the hotel with members of the FFA, so I'd have to return to - you guessed it - almost all the way back to the airport to stay at a different Hampton Inn. At rush hour. In construction traffic.
This Hampton Inn is also FFA central (they're 4 to a room on my floor - I'm at the end of the hall so I got to celebrate the magic that is Teens Away From Home Without Mom & Dad and I'm looking forward to a busy night as I'm right by the stairwell linking FFA floor #1 and FFA floor #2.
But it is comfortable here - I did get to swim and the nice staff made copies for me (they don't have a business center and it was too late to go find a Kinkos by the time I got here...) Apparently the night will be comped (yes!) and perhaps that will help me offset the extra hidden surprise! cost in the rental car contract. Let's just say that evidently Indianapolis earns a good part of its income from conventions, and the rental car places are savvy to that truth - cars here are more expensive than any other place I've rented!
Tomorrow I'm off to Stitches & Scones. I have a 9am class, but I have a long drive and I have to check out of the hotel before I leave (apparently I'm supposed to return to the ORIGINAL Hampton Inn for the rest of my stay...) I do understand about the overbooking - it happens - but I wish they would have called Molli at S&S, she would have called me and I could have saved an hour in traffic in an unfamiliar town. I guess this is how we get to know new places!
5 Comments:
Wow I can't believe that they sent you all the way back to the airport. Couldn't they have called you or something? How aggrivating. At least they were nice enough to print the hand outs and comp you for your room. It is still aggrivating.
Wish I could be at the S&S event. I am only about an hour away *sniff, sniff* but have no one to watch the child. Oh well, hopefully you will come back to Hamilton, Ohio or even closer to me some time soon. :)
I'm amused by the idea of a young kid being a "Future FFA Member"... making the kid a Future Future Farmer? :)
I think I actually cringed at the "Teens Away From Home Without Mom & Dad". I remember staying at the Marriot Marquis in Times Square my senior year of high school for All-Eastern Conference and seeing the looks of unsuspecting travellers who paid big bucks to stay there as they were met with the sight of hundreds of hyped-up high school band, chorus and orchestra kids taking over the fancy dining rooms and lounging in the hallways and lobbies. :)
You are so good-natured! (Maybe that's why your totally adorable kids are laughing so hard.) Thank heavens they comped your room, at least. Sometimes I think the travel industry treats the public like cattle -- planes, hotels, all of it. Trust you'll have a redeeming experience in your classes.
The kids from our local high school are there at the FFA meeting. I hope they are behaving well!!
Fear not, the FFA kids are behaving exactly as I'd like my own kids to behave. I'm impressed by all of them!
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