The Amazing True Adventures of the Global Nomad

As promised, the chronicle of my travels to Minneapolis. The following story is true. Not even the names have been changed to protect the innocent, primarily because nobody in the story is particularly innocent. Warning: It is long.

It started on Mothers' Day. The Day of Mothers dawned bright and fair in Visalia. Jeff and I arose and went to church; Jeff had some hearty handshakes, while I skillfully and sullenly avoided any real contact with people (I was forced to shake hands during the “greet” section of the service—I consider such activity highly inappropriate, by the way—but I didn’t smile while doing it, so it doesn’t count, right?) and reflected on the fact that the Christian flag was partially hidden by the left end of the stage, while the US flag was in full sight on the right. WTF? Well, as my dad always says, “Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately accounted for by stupidity.”
We picked up Debbie at her house, and went up to the mountains (Sequioa Park, to exact), because that is what she said she wanted to do. It was actually very nice. The weather was warm enough for me to wear a tank top, but not too warm for comfort. We drove into the park (after purchasing a year entry pass to the park for $30, when just the one day cost $20), and climbed Moro Rock. It was good exercise, and I always enjoy a nice big rock. The sad thing is that all the fun parts of the rock are beyond the railings that have been erected, and Jeff will not allow me to clamber around on the so-called “dangerous” sections. *sulk sulk* Actually, I’m smart enough to know when to climb on big steep rocks, and when to leave well enough alone: it’s called risk management, people, and it’s the main reason why I’m still alive after some decades of playing with fire, fording through leech-and-schistosome-infested waters, and leaping about on boulders like a mountain goat. You gotta know which risks to take, and which to leave well enough alone. Moro Rock, beyond boundaries, is a leave-alone. So says the Kiti Fantastico. Aside from the constrictive rails, Moro Rock is very fun because they have informative placard things along the stairs, so you can stop and read about the geology and flora and fauna of the park. Since I know far more about tropical rainforests than sequoia redwood forests, and since I love reading informative placards, I had great fun with beautiful scenery, and cracking jokes with Debbie and Jeff.
When you climb up a rock, you must climb back down, and so we did. Then we drove around the park some more, but I must confess that I just don’t like trees as much as I like rocks, so I wasn’t too enthused about doing any more hiking. Debbie likes dogwood trees, and she is, of course, an amateur botanist, so I would imagine she likes the forest qua forest, whereas I consider it worthwhile mostly as a setting for big rocks to climb. After Debbie and Jeff took some pictures of a blooming dogwood (while I sat in the car and read In Style magazine, because I’d already encountered Nature for the day, thank you very much), we drove back down through Three Rivers (the water is high, due to the precipitation of the winter, which is apparently now melting out and running off in the streams and rivers) and got ice cream and candy at Reimers. I think the candy is overpriced, but the ice cream is fabulous. Mmmmm. Then we dropped Debbie at home, and went to enjoy some of the Netflix that we’d finally gotten—Angel. As we were settling in for a restful evening, the phone rang.
It was Frank (my boss, FYI). There was an crisis situation with a mission in Minnesota: Dave, who was scheduled to go, and had actually traveled as far as Las Vegas, had a medical emergency, and was in a hospital there. Alice couldn’t go because of a family situation. I, the untested one, the virgin solo trainer, was our only hope. *gulp* The mission started on Monday morning, 8:00 Central Time. It was just before 7:30 pm on Sunday evening, Pacific Time. Could I go?
Well, I decided that I could, even if it meant leaving my Jeffrey and my Netflix behind, and venturing to unfamiliar territory without having even done training with a shadow for backup. I got off the phone, and started throwing stuff into a duffle bag, while suddenly going into unaccustomed panic mode. Jeff took me down to the office, where Frank had some paperwork, the laptop, and my manuals ready to go, and we zipped up to the Fresno airport. It was tense, since my America West flight was supposed to leave at 9:15 pm. I wasn’t too scared about missing the flight, though. Frank drove really fast.
Long story short, I made my flight to Vegas, although there was some interesting drama at the check-in/ticket counter. The man in front of me in line took a long time dealing with his issue: he had a gun, and had a permit to carry it, but apparently he just didn’t have the proper container for it. There was a prolonged discussion:
Man: I’ve never had a problem carrying it before.
Ticket agent: I’m sorry, but these are regulations. You have to get a proper lockable container.
Man: But there are no bullets in it! It can’t be fired anyway.
Ticket agent: Let me get you the container with an approved lock.
Etc. etc. etc.
I told the agent, “I have to get on flight XXXX to Las Vegas.”
He said, “Don’t worry. I’ll get you on.”
So I was pretty sure I had a good chance. When he finally checked me in, he noted that my ID did not match my ticket name (ID still in maiden name)—not a big deal, but he marked me for an extra security search by placing some esses on my boarding pass, saying, “If I mark you ahead of time, they will search you, but they won’t give you a hard time about your ID, since they’ll know that I’ve already checked it. If I let you through, they might stop you at the security checkpoint, and it might be harder to get through, then.”
I didn’t care if they made me tap dance and sing “Moon River” at the security checkpoint, as long as I made my flight, so it was all good. I gave a quick call to Frank, who was standing by just in case I didn’t make the flight, and told him that I’d checked in and was good to go. I apologized for the delay, and hollered something about a man with a gun, which probably sounded alarming without context, but then I had to hang up quickly, as I reached the security line. When I got to the metal detector gate, sure enough, they pulled me aside and told me, “You’ve been randomly selected for an extra security screening.” Hilarious! I didn’t care about being searched, since the most dangerous thing in my bag was a book that might cause paper cuts, but I thought it was ridiculous for them to tell me the search was “random”. The ticket agent told me it was going to happen, as he marked SSSS on my boarding pass, to intentionally trigger the search. NOTE TO TSA: Most people may be as stupid as you think they are, but some of us are not. Do us the courtesy of giving us some credit. Sheesh.
Anyway. I boarded the plane after most of the other passengers, but they weren’t even close to closing the door, and gun guy (who was, on top of everything else, wearing a wild Hawaiian print shirt) got on the plane after me, so it was all good. Then, we waited and waited to take off, because there was some sort of delay, and we didn’t get off the ground till nearly 30 minutes after we were scheduled. And we had this crazy flight attendant named Doris, who seriously seemed as if she didn’t know what she was doing. When she read little safety lecture, she kept taking looong pauses, and stumbling over words. It was a little bit frightening.
I like landing in Las Vegas at night: the city is all lit up, and from a height, you can’t tell that it is trashy and dirty. I looked especially for the Luxor, and spotted it: the pyramid with this huge upward-facing searchlight. I don’t know why it was so important for me to see it; maybe I’m just easily attracted to shiny things.
When we landed, we were more than half an hour late, so I had to book it from my terminal to my connecting flight. I was leaving from some terminal way out on the edge of the LV airport, I think, because I had to take a tram thingie and rush along a corridor to get to my gate, only to discover that… my connecting flight had just taken off! OH, NO, YOU DI’N’T!!! There was a Supremely Uninterested and Unhelpful Airline Employee to tell me, and another passenger (who I recognized from being on the flight from Fresno), that we were just out of luck.
Me: I HAVE to get to Minneapolis by 8 am, their time.
Other Guy: Me, too!
SUAUAE: The next flight to Minneapolis leaves at 6 am.
Me: But we missed our flight because YOUR airline was late taking off. It wasn’t our fault! You have to accommodate us.
SUAUAE: We don’t have any more flights going to Minneapolis tonight. Sorry.
Me and the Other Guy: Then get us a flight on another airline.
SUAUAE: There is a Northwest flight to Minneapolis. You can try to get that.
Me: Oh, believe me, I’ll be on it.
At this point, you may well believe, I was just bound and determined to get to Minneapolis. It would have been too ridiculous for TWO of us trainers to be stranded in Vegas. I thought about calling Frank, but decided that he was counting on me, and I was going to not bother him until I absolutely had to. I took the tram back to the main airport area, and asked for directions to the Northwest Air counter. The Other Guy followed me, since he didn’t know how to get there, but was genetically incapable of asking for directions.
I marched up to the NWA counter and told them my tale of woe. There was this crazy ticket counter guy (named Bill) who was very helpful yet couldn’t work his computer, so he had to keep asking other people to do stuff for him; however, with the help of other employees, he worked his mojo and got me one of the last seats on the NWA flight to Minneapolis. Yes! I’d lost track of the Other Guy, though, so I don’t know if he got on or not. The flight left Las Vegas at 1 am, so I went to the waiting area to just, well, wait. I had to go back through a security gate, of course, and I was yet again selected for a “random” extra security check. I told them I didn’t care, as long as I made my flight.
I was able to snooze on the plane, fortunately, so I had a few hours of sleep when the flight touched down in MSP (Minneapolis-Saint Paul) airport. It was 6 am, and I had two hours to claim my luggage, freshen up in the airport bathroom, grab a taxi, and arrive like a perky daisy at the client site. There was only one flaw in my plan: While I made it to Minneapolis, my luggage did not. Seriously.
I went to the luggage claim and waited for a long time, but my duffel bag never came around. Hmm. I went to the NWA luggage counter, but there was no one there. I waited for more than half an hour, along with a few other irate customers. No one came. A sign by the counter gave a number to call for help with lost luggage. I called the number (I am nothing if not proactive that way), and they told me to go to the luggage counter, since they couldn’t help me if I didn’t have a lost luggage claim number or some such thing, and of course, I had to get a lost luggage claim form from the lost luggage counter. I told them, “There is NO ONE AT THE LUGGAGE COUNTER.” They said, “There must be; they start at 4:30 am.” However, since I was standing right there and not seeing anyone at the luggage counter, they finally advised me to go up to the Northwest Air check-in counter and talk to someone there. Aha! I knew there had to be a real live person at the check-in counter. After a conversation with an employee there, I was (predictably) told to go to America West (after all, they had checked my luggage in Fresno); equally predictably, America West sent me back to NWA, as I had a luggage transfer document that had been given to me by NWA’s Bill back in Las Vegas. NWA, still unable to deal with their own problems, sent me back downstairs to the luggage counter. I told them, “There is NO ONE AT THE LUGGAGE COUNTER.” NWA guy: “There must be. They start really early in the morning. Let me give them a call.” He called downstairs to check. Surprise, surprise, there was no answer at the luggage counter phone. He told me to go down anyway, and I don’t blame him, since he was the check-in counter guy, trying to handle checking people in on a busy Monday morning. But seriously, when I said, “There is no one at the luggage counter,” why wouldn’t people believe me? I don’t understand.
What could I do? I went back down the escalator to the luggage area. This was the only time during my trip that I came close to tears. I made myself snap out of it, reminding myself, “Honestly, Deb, this is not even close to the worst you’ve had it. Think of Heathrow in January 2003.” Anyway. So there I was at the luggage counter. The other irate lost-luggage customers were still there. Finally, a NWA employee came to the counter and said, “Oh, sorry. We had two people call in sick this morning, and only just now realized it.” Idiots. And I bet they get away with it because they’re union. Idiots. But the long and the short of it was that my luggage just hadn’t arrived yet in MSP. The Idiot Luggage Counter Guy could track it, thanks to my luggage claim ticket and luggage transfer document, so he assured me that it would arrive later that day. *sigh* I gave him my hotel address, so that they could drop off my bag when it came, and made it clear that I expected it by evening.
Now, bear in mind, Dear Reader, that I really, really needed my bag. I really, really needed some deodorant and a toothpaste/toothbrush combo. I had spent the previous afternoon hiking among the Sequoias, and had not had the chance to shower, change, or even brush my teeth since then. I was still wearing the clothes I’d worn. I looked neither fresh nor attractive.
Well, I had to do without deo or a toothbrush. Fortunately, I nearly always carry a brush and some makeup in my purse, so I had those to work with. Furthermore, I had a packet of gum. Score! I splashed water on my face, patted it dry, and applied some makeup in order to look a little less corpse-like, then brushed out my hair, all while chomping furiously on some wintergreen-flavored gum. Luckily, I am not prone to sweatiness or smelliness, so my scent was mostly influenced by that distinctive sun-block odor, but I still felt a little self-conscious. And I was wearing jeans, a tank top, and a casual sweater. On my first-ever solo training mission. With a very large and prominent client company.
Oh, well. What could I do? I made myself as ready as I could, then went out to find a taxi. Airports are usually good, in that they have approved (i.e. safe and fairly honest) taxi companies available, so I was able to catch a ride to downtown Minneapolis. The driver was nice enough (Arabic, if I don’t miss my guess), and even with my misadventures and morning traffic, I was only 10 minutes late to the client site!
Frank had called ahead and notified the client of the change in plans, so my contact (Thom) was very kind and generous to me. I was able to get set up and get the training done, despite network problems and the fact that the client wanted only certain specific things to be taught. No problem, as I was able to accommodate very well.
Naturally, by the end of the day, I was very tired. Conveniently, my hotel was basically across the street from the client site, so I just walked over. When I arrived, my bag was waiting for me at the front desk! Such a sweet reunion! Of course, it couldn’t be all happy: there were some difficulties with authorizing the credit card for the hotel room (due to the fact that it was a company card), but they were resolved, thanks to the fabulous team at my company. Suffice to say that I’d had quite enough adventures to fill my past 24 hours.
I called Jeff and then Mum (I said, “It’s 6 pm in California. Do you know where your daughter is?” Heheh.). Special thanks to Jeff for being such a good sport about letting me go traipsing off to middle America on 30 minutes’ notice!

So there you have it. There is more, naturally, for how could one visit historic Minneapolis without a few more stories? But those will have to wait.