We're out of here...or are we?

Its been almost 2 weeks since Mike and I went to Florida. The trip planning started before Christmas when he was asked to go to one of 2 conferences for his job at Boston Scientific.

He told me the choices were Florida or Vegas, and he told me the dates. The Florida dates worked better for me work wise, since I don't get any actual vacation days I have to work it out with comp time. The Vegas days were close to the time we do some mandated testing on the computers, so I thought best to be around school on those days.

We planned. We bought tickets. We got my mom to buy a ticket to come up here from Georgia to stay with Charlie and play Cook and Chauffeur (because he really doesn't need a "babysitter").

I informed the RP (Russian Principal) of my plans. I didn't ask, because then he could say no, and it really wasn't a question of me going or not, I was going.

The day got closer. My mom flew in on Wednesday, February 25. No problems, no delays.

The weatherman was talking about a snow storm coming on the day we were supposed to leave, Thursday, February 26. This worried me since my mom hasn't really driven in snow since they moved to Georgia almost 4 years ago, and she had to drive back to our house after we got to the airport.

Thursday dawns with no snow. Charlie goes to school, Mike goes to work, I go to work. Everything is fine until about 11:30 when it starts snowing. Mike and I are supposed to be home about noon, to finish packing, eat lunch and leave the house by 1pm.

I'm a little late getting out of work, posting some last minute things to the school web page become necessary at the last minute - and we all know how important that is!

I walk out of school about 12:10. It is coming down pretty hard about now.

I'm almost to my car...and then I'm on the ground, landing mainly on my left knee.

I wonder how I'm going to get up - its icy! I get up, haul myself into the van and drive home.

Mike is already there - surprise! I tell Mike and my mom that I fell, and I think I skinned my knee. We all go up in the bathroom and I take off my pants.

This is a picture we took about 12 hours later, but this is basically what it looked like, except worse.

Mike says "Oh My God! You need stitches!" I say no, I don't need stitches we just need to get to the airport so my mom can get back home before the weather gets any worse. I was off my knee, Mike puts the butterfly on it, wraps it up a little and we go.

The drive to the airport is hideous. Mike keeps reaching out the window, grabbing the windshield wiper and whacking against the windshield to get the ice off it. We are going slow, and you can't see any of the lanes...there is one old guy driving like he's been tipping a few at the local bar. It takes us about an hour and 15 minutes but we get there. My mom gets into the van, white knuckles on the steering wheel and heads out to PL.

We check our bags, go through security and check the flight. Its delayed until 5:15, originally due to depart at 3:25. We go to the info desk, and ask the nice, retired volunteer if there is a clinic nearby where we can go get stitches. He doesn't know but tells us to ask the nice policeman walking our way. We ask. "Well, there used to be a clinic right here near the airport, but its closed." He doesn't think we can make it anywhere else and get back in time for the flight in this weather.

We go get a table at Chili's. I never did have lunch. Mike gets on the laptop, while I wait for my Southwest Egg Rolls to arrive. I can feel the blood running down my leg.

I eat, Mike cancels the hotel reservation in Sarasota. Its a 2 hour drive from the airport so we scrap that plan knowing that we are going to be late, and we need an urgent care facility. Google urgent care in Orlando. "Open until midnight" he says. We're sure we'll be there by then. He looks for hotels near the urgent care.

I call Charlie. He made it home on the bus, they cancelled all after school activities, so no Knowledge Bowl. I tell him it will probably take Grandma awhile to get home from the airport. She calls me back about 3:15 and says it was better going home, they had actually plowed some of the roads. I'm relieved that she has made it in one piece, and now I can relax a little bit.

I finish eating and tell Mike he needs to re-bandage my knee. He goes back to the nice, retired guy at the info desk. They chat for awhile.

"There is only 1 family bathroom in the airport. Come on." I get up. I hobble a long way down past the shops. We turn into a hallway that looks like it is for people that work at the airport. No one stops us. We find the bathroom. The ski patrol husband gets all his medical crap out of the carry on bag, and does up the wound - again. We leave the bathroom, I take 3 steps and the bandage starts slipping. We go back. He tries to fix it. I'm a little pissed off now that this happened, and it hurts, and its bleeding, and the stupid bandage won't stay up. I decide not to let it ruin the trip. We leave again, Mike hails a cart to haul me and my wound out to a far away gate.

Our flight is postponed again. And again. And possibly again, I lost track. We finally get on the plane about 7:45pm. There is another plane parked behind us, that has to move. Then we have to go to De-icing and get in line. Then, maybe we can take off. Its snowing pretty hard again, and they are plowing the runway, again.

After 1 more delay because of ice in one of the doors of the plane, we go to De-ice, and we actually take off about 9pm. Forget that urgent care that is open until midnight, we land about 10 minutes to 12:00am.

Here is Mike at Hertz at about 1:15am.

After trying a bunch of stinky cars we get a mini-van (which is good for my leg that won't bend) and we find a hotel, at 2am.

In the morning we go to urgent care where we see a woman who says she's a Dr. She takes one look at my knee from about 2 feet away and says "Oh, I can't do anything about that, its been too long. Don't get it wet, and don't bend it or it will come open again." The helper person re-wraps it, and we go to a superstore for more bandage materials, because obviously, we're going to need them!