Tuesday, August 16, 2011 - Travel Day

Woke up early as we readied ourselves for the day. Brothers (and niece) arrived right on time (ten minutes early), but I had gotten a bit behind printing boarding passes (both ours and my brother’s, who called while driving here to see if I could do that for him), Last night, our seats hadn’t been assigned yet, but this morning they had, Row 3 next to each other, thank goodness. At last, the front of the plane! The rest of the flights are further back, but what can you expect when you book less than a week in advance! Thankfully, the rest of the flight was uneventful, even with a stopover at Reagan National. Not surprised, considering it wasn’t Delta! Flew USAir this time, and had no problems. Arrived right on scheduled, picked up a rental car, which the gentleman at the counter was nice enough to upgrade to a Nissan for free, but when we got into I immediately realized that despite numerous stickers to the contrary, the car had been smoked in. Sorry, but as an ex-smoker, I really couldn’t take that, so we changed cars, getting a cute little Ford Focus hatchback that had really jazzy lines to it. Got a little lost on the way to the hotel, but stumbled upon a grocery store where we were able to get everything we needed for the duration. Stayed at the Hampton Inn in Southside, which was about the closest hotel to where we would be working, plus we like the free breakfast : -). Room was comfy and we were ready for an early night.