Over the holiday weekend, I received an email that indicated that I needed to make a trip to Bentonville to do maybe 1-2 hours of work. Having recently spent more nights out of town than in, I decided to fly in and out the same day if such flights made sense. A quick Google search turned up the possibility of a 16 hour door to door trip. On the surface, this looked pretty good so I booked it!
Tuesday, travel day, came quickly. I was out of the house by 7:00 AM with wheels up around 8:20 AM. Several hours of flight time and a layover in Atlanta passed quickly, lost to the pages of a really good book, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But a good book, smooth flight and early arrival provided no compensation for the cold rain that greeted me on the ground.
My rental turned out to be a Mustang pony. With it’s cheesy interior and low to the ground front seats, I don’t understand the fascination with this car. The back spoiler almost sent me back to the Hertz counter but my other choice was a Chevrolet Monte Carlo and, well….
After a few errands and lunch, it was time to head to my meeting. By this time, a gusty wind had kicked in and the rain was relentless. I cruised the parking lot looking for an open space and was quick to react to the backup lights on a car near the front door. I turned on my blinker and circled close. The parked car began to pull out about the same time I spotted a car pulling in another entrance to the lot. The driver, a New York garmento type, quickly gunned his car, put on his blinker and pulled in the spot before I could get around the car pulling out. A few choice words muttered in the solitude of my pony and I am back on the road heading to a parking lot several blocks away, glad I had stopped to buy yet another umbrella that I will forget on the next trip.
The meeting was quick but not quick enough to get me to the airport to standby for the 4:20 PM flight. I caught the last flight out to Atlanta, the 6:05 PM. I was tired and ready to get home. The return flights were a little rougher and my mind kept drifting away from reading. Finally, on the short Atlanta to Knoxville leg, I surrendered to a short nap.
I pulled into the driveway about 11:45 PM, 16 hours and 45 minutes door to door. At the end of the day crawling into my own bed was worth the effort.
