Nov 9 I flew to Longmont Colorado for 3 days for work. I don't normally travel for work, or really travel at all except for the occasional driving trip to Green Bay Wisc to visit my in laws every 3 months or so, so I was really nervous about it.

In mid October, I was asked if I would accompany a gay male co worker to Longmont in early November, and be his assistant, as he is very experienced at doing system utilization reviews, and I have only done 2, locally. I agreed.

About a week later, only after agreeing, then I was told, Oh by the way, you'll have to travel together and you'll have to do all the driving, he's had his licence revoked. That would have been good information before I made my decision to say yes, but I still agreed.

He and I agreed on which two days we would do it, leaving the day before coming back the day after. So I scheduled 4 days to be gone.

He and I got together and booked our flight and our hotel and agreed on a car. At that time I found out he'd altered out plans to a day earlier than he and I had agreed on , earlier. He'd even told the client, but he hadn't told me. But I still agreed, and now I thought we were all set.

Then the company re-assigned him that same week to a new more important project, and I was told you may be doing this SUR on your own ! I said OK, but just bear in mind it won't be as thorough, with just one person doing it, because I was still limited to just the 2 days.

Then just about a week before it was time to go, the company assigned me a new companion, who explained she was coming with me even though she was very very busy, so I would be the project leader, and she would be the assistant. She was so upset at our hotel plans she called , herself, and booked us a different hotel. She actually said , " I need more luxury than that, and I need a bar attached." So I ended up calling and cancelling the simpler less expensive hotel my ex partner and I had previously reserved. And our client has to pay more, just because she needs more luxury than that and needs a bar attached, because the client has to pay our expenses.

So she still wants me to do "leadership" of it, but she still wants to control all the details.

Every single one of these changes in plan made me more nervous and angry. I rarely travel and I just needed the stability of knowing for sure what the plans were. I wished I had said I couldn't go.

So Monday morning Nov 7 my husband drove me to the airport. I was so increasingly nervous over the last few days. I haven't flown since I took my 3 year old daughter to Washington State in 1997, and I knew that the airport rules were more strict than they used to be, and that I didn't know what they are. I met my new partner there. I had not eaten since I woke up, because my stomach felt too upset and I didn't want to risk eating. Also I had a huge head ache that stayed with me the entire day.

At the air port it was pretty easy to figure out what to do because I had to stand in line behind other people, and saw what they did. take off your shoes, take your laptop computer out of your shoulder bag, take off your coat, put them in separate bins on the conveyor belt, then put your shoulder bag on the conveyor belt after them. Walk through the metal detector, which I did not set off, and just pick everything up again on the other side. No prob.

Once we were seated on the plane, I felt much better. I felt like I'd finally made it OK.

The flight itself from Minneapolis to Denver was only 90 minutes. It felt like even less.

We took a shuttle van to Enterprise Rent a Car, and found, just as I'd always heard, no they had not reserved the exact car I signed up for. In fact they insisted they didn't have any sedans available at all, only big cars like Jeeps, which I've never driven before and don't intend to, with a passenger, on unfamiliar roads. My headache got worse . I insisted. Finaly yes, they had a Grand Prix in the back. My parnter was appalled. She wanted me to rent a big car . And the Grand Prix was white, and she loudly complained to me and to the rental person, "I hate white!" For gods sake who hates white? What is her problem? Plus, unlike my original partner, she has not had her license revoked, but she says she still wants me to drive. We drive away in our white Grand Prix and she loudly whines, "We're so low. Now I feel like I'm in a coffin!" and a few other things like that , as if to say even if I'm driving she still wanted to pick the car.

I decided I'm traveling with Endora from Bewitched, nothing is good enough for her. And she's about that same age, too.

Before we left Minneapolis, the week before, she said I should still drive and she can navegate. She did bring some map quest maps she's printed off . But later she said, "I hope the car has GPS, because I'm terrible with directions." Now she tells me.

I intended to keep the radio off because I couldn't believe she and I would ever agree on a radio station. But we both agreed on a classic rock radio station . Not my favorie genre, but I don't hate it. So Endora likes to rock out, who knew?

I stop-started all the way out of the parking lot because it had been so long since I'd driven an automatic I forgot you just don't do anything with your left foot. I was resting it on the brake, as if it were the clutch. Once I got that figured out, we drove well north out of Denver, and stopped in Boulder. Boulder has a town square, about 8 blocks square, all pedestrian -only! It was so fun and relaxing, it felt like a college town, which it is. It felt like the one time I visited Madison, Wisc , and like an 8-block-square Grand Avenue, near my old college. It was a very hippie neighborhood, but not just relegated to college age kids. Lots of people of all ages just hanging out, and most if not all of the shops were independent local businesses, which meant there were a lot of craft stores and clothing stores.

I was starving by then, and as much as we would have preferred a local diner, we could only find bars and cafes with very limited menus. So we stopped at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, and now, at about 3:30 I finally ate something for the first time today. I was starved by then, my stomach had settled, and I hoped eating would get rid of my big headache, which it didn't. I had really fresh shrimp spring rolls, which they called Summer rolls on their menu for some reason. Very delicous and so big I couldn't finish it all. One great thing about this trip is that I didn't really worry about how much I was spending for food, in restaurants, because I'm going to receive a per-diem amount for each day, that is way more than I'd ever spend on food. My traveleing companion and I both shared our orders with each other, they were both great, and neither of us could finish. It felt great to relax. We both walked around the whole neighborhood, we had plenty of time.

The bad part of this trip is how much TIME I spent in restaurants, and how big the portions are, and that I'm trying so hard to avoid pop. I think its toxic. And I like it.

I drove further north, and although we did end up hunting and pecking around the entire city of Longmont looking for their Radison hotel, we did eventually find it. Both our rooms had two beds, why did we have to charge the client for two rooms. And neither of them had a bath tub. I was hoping a bath would relieve my head ache. I'll bet the first hotel my old partner and I reserved, I'll be they had a bath tub!

Of course my partner wanted to hit the attached bar right away, so I went with her and broke my non-pop rule as soon as I got there, because I'm weak.

Later that night she and I called each other, on our cell phones, right across the hall from each other, because the TV had menus for pay per view and billable video games, but not for regular free TV. We eventually figured out how to watch free tv, and then we couldn't get the hotel's advertised "wireless" connection to connect us to our home office on our lap tops, got a forced busy when we tried to use the modem-connection jack for that same reason. My partner called a fellow employee at home who walked us through adding a "dial 9 to dial out" 9 to the outgoing phone number.

Our beds were sleep number beds. Over rated. First I laid on it and it felt too hard. Then I pressed the sleep number button to lower the sleep number from 40 to 30 to 25. It just felt like I was laying on a deflating air bed. Softer didn't make it more comfortable. Maybe it made it slightly less uncomfortable. Remind me not to get a Sleep Number bed some day.

We spent the next 2 days eating breakfast at the hospital cafe across the street from our client's office, then meeting with the client for 4 hours, eating too much in a restaurant for lunch, or eating to much order-in lunch, then 4 more hours meeting with the client. It was a good trip, becuase they really do need help over there, and we will be able to make a lot of really good recomendations for them. I think they will be very pleased with the results. Then eating too much at a local Old Chicago for dinner. Endora had such an unbelievably undercooked burger there, that it put both us off our appetites for the next 24 hours. I don't mind rare, but I swear that one was barely thawed!

Our last night there, we were standing outside so my partner could smoke, and my partner said, "I'm so glad you do our System Utilization Reviews now. You know so many details." I stopped her right there! I've done 3, this is my first out of state, but I haven't commited to more. She argued, "You're the only one who can!" Great. I've been Shanghai'd. I almost fainted.

On Thursday morning we drove back the way we came. We had to stay an extra night because there would be no way we could leave the client's office at 5 pm and still make it to Denver for its only evening flight to Minneapolis. But we took a $3.50 toll way everyone told us about. I told Endora I needed to pull over in to the right lane to pay the tolls, but she absolutely insisted that we stay in the left "pass" lane, because it has one big toll booth at the end. But it didn't . The off ramp had no toll booth. I asked about that at the rental car agency. The attendent told us the "pass" lane is for people who have purchased a monthly pass, and that now our rental car was probably photographed, and I would get a fine in the mail! I told my partner you made me not stop at the toll booths. She said why did you listen ? The attendant printed the web site page of the toll lane department.

I went through the whole airport check in process easily because I'd just done it 3 days before and now I knew what to expect. We made it to our gate. I called the toll lane department on my cell phone to explain I am from out of town and did not know about the pass lane. But their phone greeting said they were closed for the holiday! What holiday is Nov 10 ? Nov 11 is Veterans Day, but not Nov 10. Since I normally work in a call center myself, I knew that their phone message was accidentally on a day early, the company was open, business was happening as usual, I would get an expensive ticket, but their call center people were sitting at their desks thinking, " I wonder why the phones aren't ringing?" I thought to myself that's it. If I owe a huge fine and the company won't pay it,I'm never traveling for them again.

I fumed for an hour, sitting there in the Airport. But I tried again later, and someone answered. She agreed they'd had "problems with our phones," earlier that morning. I explained my case and she let me pay the original $3.50 toll , just by yelling my corporate credit card number to her over my cell phone in a crowded airport. I was relieved.

I headed for a nearby gift shop and bought some souveniers for my husband and kids, came back and found everyone had boarded! I was one of the last ones on. The flight back home felt like no time at all. I was lucky my partner had offered to drive me home, so my husband didn't have to pick me up at the same time he needed to pick our kids up at school.

I walked right back in to our family's hectic evening of activities however . My son's school had 1st grade all-class choir concert that night, but my daughter's Scouts had a field trip to see a variety show put on at the local high school at that very same times, and no one else could take my daughter, believe me I asked. So my husband took my son to sing in his concert. I drove my daughter 4 blocks away to her Scouts, but I made it back to my son's school just in time for the first graders including myson to be done singing, and the second graders to come on ! Arg! Luckily both classes had some songs to sing toghether at the end , and I ran up front and took pictures. My son,however, cannot stand still.While the rest of his class stood straight and tall, to sing, my son slowly twirled himself around in slow circles while he sang.

I felt like kissing the ground when I got home. Apparently I'm not the thrill seeking aging punk rock girl I like to think I am. I am a neurotic control freak who doens't like my routine disrupted. I was thrilled to go back to my regular office on Friday and put in a 8 our day getting the phone, in the call center, where I'm familiar with everything.