The LONG Trip Home

Hi Everyone!

When I left off yesterday in describing my trip, we were leaving Minot, ND and heading back to Fargo/Moorhead.  We took a different route--in order to see some "different" scenery, ha ha.  Actually, we did drive through some rolling hills, so it wasn't as flat as we had previously seen.  We drove diagonally down from the North West to the South East until we got on the freeway at Jamestown.  It turns out that Jamestown in the home of a sacred white buffalo, which we glimpsed as we drove by.  There wasn't enough time to get a photo.  Did you know that the Native American tribes in the great plains considered white buffalo (albinos and very rare) to be sacred?

We arrived in the Fargo/Moorhead area around 2-3 in the afternoon.  My husband tried calling his mom and couldn't get a hold of her.  We had checked into our hotel and as we drove to it we spied an antique store, so we went back to browse.  Meanwhile, I was texting with his sister and she said the we could go to their house for supper and a visit.  After we were done browsing, we finally got his mother on the phone (she had been away having coffee) we went to her apartment and picked her up and went to my SIL's house.  We have three young nephews there, and it was fun seeing them since we haven't in several years.  Young boys sure grow fast! 

The next day was all about visiting my MIL, since it was Monday and everyone else was working, etc.  We spent the day with her doing some things to help her, like cleaning up a few things on her computer, and hooking up a new tv for her with a cable to the computer so she can get netflicks if she wants.  We also went to an antique mall and while the shop the previous day was pretty junky, this mall was AWESOME.  Because we were flying, I had to restrain myself, though.  Here are some of the "spoils."

I like to get old flags.  These are 48 star flags.  When I first began finding them, my husband couldn't figure out how I knew, with a quick glance, if they were 48 stars or not.  I showed him how the stars are in a grid pattern.  These were VERY affordable, too.  I was thrilled to find the larger one with a navy staff as I had another at home, and pairs are always better! 

Then I discovered something that I've never seen before:

I have never seen 49 star flags before!  The blue star field looks very similar to our 50 star flag, so I plan to count the stars in some of my older "50 star" flags to see if any are 49 instead. 

The package contained a panel of one larger flag, and two smaller ones.

 

Another fun thing that I found was this still "new/in the box," vintage travel iron.

The cord unplugs from the iron and the handle folds flat.  There are no switches or settings--it is on and hot if plugged in and off when unplugged.

I tried it out yesterday and it works great!  I LOVE the sharp point of the tip.

I also collect little, red child's chairs.  They had a great one with awesome paint, but it was way too big for the suitcase, but I did find this miniature one, so it came home with me, too.

The next day, Tuesday, was our return day. Our flight was leaving at 2pm, but we wanted to get to the airport by 11 in order to return the rental car so we didn't have to pay for an additional day.  My MIL had a doctor's appointment, so we had made our farewells the night before.  We got up and packed everything and decided to have a large breakfast so that we wouldn't be hungry at lunch time.  We were still done early, so we headed to the airport anyway.  There was an earlier flight to Chicago and I thought maybe we could get on it.  I was worried because we only had 50 minutes in between flights in Chicago and on our way we had to change terminals.  We arrived at the airport at 10 AM or so.

We weren't able to get on the earlier flight, but we had books, computers, ipods, etc. so we could occupy ourselves until our 2:00 flight.  After a while, we started overhearing conversations about late aircraft and fog in Chicago.  Hmm.  Our flight was still okay, so we went back to reading.  It turned out that the earlier flight was late arriving and departing.  Around 1 pm, I got an email from the airline telling us that our flight from Chicago to Richmond would be late.  Immediately after that, I got another email that it was cancelled.  I packed everything up and went to search from my husband who was walking around, so that we could go to the counter to see our options.  He needed to call the Army and add another day of leave.  As we were waiting in line, I got a third email saying we were rescheduled on another flight departing at 9:40 from Chicago and arriving in Richmond just before midnight.  We stayed in line to see if we could get our boarding passes, but we couldn't.  So we went back upstairs to go through security  for our flight out of Fargo.  Just after we settled in the gate area, I got another email saying that our Fargo flight was delayed.  I could go on and on here--but I suspect that you are getting the idea of our tedious day.  We finally left Fargo at 3:45.  The flight to Richmond was delayed again.  We landed in Richmond at 1:08 AM.  We still had to get luggage, ride the shuttle to our car, and drive home.  We drove in to our garage at:

Can you see?  2:39 AM! 

What is it about spending a day sitting around in an airport or on planes that makes a person so tired?  We slept until 9:30 AM and the rest of the day I managed to do laundry and run out for milk, but that was about it.  Did I mention that I hate to fly?  This is a prime example of why!

Yesterday I felt more normal and I actually worked on my Schnibble!  It is pieced and even half-quilted.  Hopefully I can show it to you soon!

Have a great day!
JoAnne