Never count your chickens....Tales from the road

High  45F so far
Low  43 F

This is NOT a Texas wildflower!
My itinerary says that right now I will be on a docent led tour of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.  The reality is that I am sitting at the computer posting yet another blog.  Has anyone ever traveled a whole day to get nowhere?  I guess many have.  One reads about them and I actually spoke to ALL of them yesterday at the Dulles (we weary travelers decided that Dulles rhymes with fools) airport where, despite all efforts to get to Austin, Texas, two of us failed(weekend travelers) and returned to our starting destination, two left with the hopes of reaching Austin by four o'clock on Saturday via Dallas and three other standby planes(wedding Saturday night) and two others spent the night and are leaving to go to Chicago and then reach Austin by late this afternoon (visiting family for a whole month). The six of us were left stranded due to our flight delay out of Providence and subsequent missed connection to Austin. That missed connection was the only on-time flight out of Dulles yesterday! Customer Service at United should be renamed 'Customer Dis-Service'  as one has to stand in line for over an hour to hear that the next, overbooked flight leaves at 5:55 p.m.  and the one after that is Saturday at 5:45 p.m.  In addition, the overworked customer service representative told me that there would be no refund as I did fly to Dulles and then had to get back to Providence.  It is my privilege to take a whole day to fly United and get nowhere! Oh, but my luggage is visiting Austin right now so all is not lost.  I hope it can talk if it ever gets home.

Eye candy to get you through this post!
  It could be worse!  I have an uncanny ability to hear life-stories.  Sitting waiting for the one final flight to Austin, which was over-booked by four ticketed customers, and six stand by, stranded customers, the gentleman on my right said 'Oh, they have delayed my flight again'.  Of course I commiserated with him which generated a bit more conversation.  What would you like to know about him?  Well, he was from Ethiopia and had been traveling for 48 hours trying to get home to New York.  He was drinking tea but owned a coffee plantation which was running smoothly.  I had noticed him earlier in the day having gone from Terminal A to Terminal D then back to Terminal A and then back to Terminal C and then on again to Terminal D.  He was elegantly dressed with suit and tie.  He had a fairly large scar on the left side of his face on the cheekbone.  An old scar but probably hand sutured as the line was large, an inch and a half long, and the dots were, well, dots!  He had neat, waist length dreadlocks.  That, to me, is a contradiction in terms (neat dreadlocks).  His day (48 hours of travel) had been worse than mine!  He was still sitting waiting for his flight when I left to return home on a day of traveling in circles. He was not the only stranger dishing details of his life.  Mark, in the left side seat, was coming home from Tehran where he had been managing family issues. That is a three page tale but suffice it to say, he was a very interesting, very educated individual who is now at home in Austin.  The cast of characters also included Ken, Elaine, Kevin, Louie, and my seatmate back to PVD whose name, believe it or not, I did not get but I do know that he ...well never mind!  Too many stories.  I have to remember that it is the journey and not the destination.  In this case, I am sure this is not true.  My Mom was right, don't count your chickens before they're hatched. 

Pam and Elizabeth have already posted details from the day and evening and I am looking forward to more pictures from the Spring Flingers in spite of the almost desperate disappointment of not meeting each and every one of them.  On a positive note, I did get to actually speak to Pam to apprise her of my plight.  A voice, an inflection, and a tone gives added life to her daily written posts and I now can hear the lilting Southerness of this still, unseen, but now heard voice of 'Digging'.