Week in Review (May 18 - May 24)

Tuesday (16,309 steps) - Work in the office. I had planned on running 4.3(ish) miles at lunch for my 43rd birthday. Lucky me, it was drizzling rain when I headed out. I figured it wouldn't be "that bad" - but it unfortunately started pouring and I got completely drenched. The good thing about that is there wasn't a million people on the bike path. I did see my first set of goslings for the year - they are pretty adorable.

Headed home to find that A had lettered in orchestra, which was pretty exciting!

Ben planned a surprise "birthday party" for me at the house. Kristin & Doug, Jeramiah & Eleanor and Tyler came over for pizza and beers in the backyard. I forgot to get a picture of the German Chocolate cake that Kristin made - it was DELICIOUS.

Wednesday (20,842 steps) - Work from home. Kristin sent me a last minute text to ask if I wanted to  join her and Tyler for a run at lunch. I didn't want to run a lot, but I joined them for the first couple miles until they took off for the tempo part of the run. I felt really slow, but my pace overall was good, and my paces are still trending down, which is fun. Took Pika for a walk. The end?

Thursday (17,730 steps) - Work from home. 

Packed for our trip and took Pika for a walk. Lake is finally filling up, it's looking better!

The owls are back!

Maureen came over after she dropped Colfax off with Kristin to spend the night so we could all ride to the airport together. Ended up being a much later night than I planned.

Friday (11,825 steps) - We had to be up around 4 am to get ready and go to the airport. We were a bit worried when we saw the line for security, but it moved really fast. We met up with Mike at the gate and then headed to the bar to grab a beer (yes, at 7:00 am) before boarding our flight.

Don't remember too much about the flight, other than it was a little turbulent, but I feel like my last few flights have all been like that. Once we deplaned I got A a coffee from Dunkin, and we had plans to stop at a brewery on our way to Graford. We had to take a shuttle to get our rental car, and that took a lot longer than we planned. When we arrived, it was PACKED. I had reserved through Thrifty, and when I got to their counter they were directing everyone to go to the Dollar line. THAT HAD A MILLION PEOPLE IN IT AND TWO PEOPLE WORKING. I flipped out and after 10 minutes we had not moved in the line, so I had Ben go over to the Alamo counter to see if they 1). had any cars and 2). how many billions of dollars they might cost. He was able to reserve a car while in line (only one person ahead of him) for "only" $120 more (for a total of $406 for two days). We got the second to last car on the lot, a Toyota Camry. By now it's already almost noon (after having landed at 10:40). Traffic was awful and there was a lot of construction, plus Ben said the car was a piece of crap and when we stopped at Whataburger to get a quick bite to eat, he stayed in the car to call roadside to ask what to do.

We finally got a gal on the phone that asked what zip code we were in and directed us to a car rental location inside a car dealership in Ft. Worth. She told us we would be able to "swap out cars." As we were pulling into the lot, Ben got a call from the on-site manager at the car rental location that swapping out cars would NOT be an option because they don't operate off the same computer system. He suggested we visit the NTB across the parking lot and have them assess what was going on, and anything that needed to be done could be "billed to Alamo." The girls decided to go for a walk while the car was being looked at. 

After an hour(ish), the guy comes out, telling us the rear tires are separated and he is working with Alamo to get the repairs authorized by Alamo. Alamo refuses to authorize and we are back on the phone figuring out what to do. Now that we know what is wrong, we certainly are not going to drive it all the way back to the airport like they suggest. Their next best solution is "maybe we can get a replacement car to you in 4-6 hours." Meanwhile, it is now after 3:00, and we have been dealing with this for HOURS. More phone calls, being on hold, no answers. I've put out a request on FB, and my friend who lives in Dallas has asked for ride availability for people heading to Graford, but time is ticking and we are running out of options. We got back to the car dealership and Ben talks face to face with the on-site manager and basically is defeated and asking for ANY help. They are not able to rent us a car from there because they are not open on Sunday and we can't return at the airport. A mom/son behind him hears the story and offers to give us a ride back to the airport, but we still have to figure out what to do with the other car. Finally we have a solution that we can leave the car at the dealership (where they will have it towed, even though they wanted us to drive it) and they will send an Uber to get us back to the airport. We get the Uber text and it says that our driver will be there in 29 minutes (it's after 4 pm now) with his CR-V. Immediately I'm like, wtf, a CR-V is not big enough for this many people... The mom/son ask if we need a ride and are willing to wait while we confirm the Uber vehicle. Ben keeps calling and the guy is not answering. He texts back a few minutes before arriving that he cannot call because he is deaf. He doesn't answer regarding vehicle type, so we wait for him to arrive, and yes, the car is too small. Ariel tries to communicate via ASL and guy tries to sign that we can just squeeze in. No.

We accept the offer from complete strangers for the 30 minute ride back to the airport. Turns out they were SUPER nice. The girls rode with the woman, Kathy, who is a retired nurse. The guys rode with Dustin, the son, who is a realtor and opened a successful restaurant (during COVID!) They wouldn't take any money from us, but asked if we would want to stop by for food on our way to of town on Sunday. It's about 5:15 at this point.

You'd think this would be the end of our drama... We get back in line at Alamo, and when Ben gets to the counter, the guy had no idea who we were, so even though we were told a car would be ready he had to go through the whole store again. The guy has to talk to the manager, and disappears for about a half hour. He comes back at 5:57 (I know, because I looked) indicating that there is a problem, because they cannot locate the car we left at the dealership. Thankfully, Ben had taken the manager's business cards, and they were able to get him on the phone - they closed at 6 pm and if they would have been even a few minutes slower, who knows how we would have gotten this resolved. Another 15-20 minutes and the Alamo onsite manager gets us into a Jeep Grand Cherokee, insisting that our whole car rental would be comped. Once again, we are on the road...

Our brewery idea scrapped, because even if we didn't stop at all, it would be after 8 before we arrived at our cabin. We stopped for pizza in a tiny town about 15 minutes away from Possum Kingdom, and it was delicious.

We had just enough time to stop at a small liquor store to buy some beer. We got to the cabin at 9:15, after meeting up with Lisa to get our keys. We had barely enough time to get everything ready for morning, since we had a 4 am wake up call.

Saturday (113,038 steps) - Possum's Revenge 52 Mile. 

Sunday (12,711 steps) - People started moving around about 9:30, which meant that Ben and I had only gotten 2-3 hours of very restless sleep. Everyone was piddling around, and I was trying to pack and organize. Even with our $300 a night cabin, we had to take all the trash out and clean everything up so as not to get charged even more. Lisa had bought me a birthday cake and we ate as much as we could before heading out.

It poured the whole drive, and we stopped in Ft. Worth at Dustin's restaurant, the Blue Mound Cafe. Maureen and I split French toast and a smother biscuit/gravy/hashbrown thing. It was DELICIOUS.

We decided we had enough time for a quick beer and stopped at False Idol, which had both tasty beer and a great patio. 

Our flight was a tad turbulent, but nothing crazy. We arrived home on time, with Ben dropping Maureen off at Kristin's to pick up the dogs. We walked them home while Ben and Ariel picked up wings for a LATE dinner.

Monday (11,254 steps) - Dead. Work from home, and exhausted all morning. Took Pika for a walk.

Tyler came over after work for happy hour, and as a result we ate dinner really late, which meant bed was late too.

Stats:

• 203,709 steps
• 57.99 miles run
• 0 minutes of Peloton
• 0 minutes rowing
• 5 minutes of strength training