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When I tell people I travel for work, I get one of two responses. The people who don't travel for work picture me on the beach with a sangria and proclaim "That's awesome! How exciting! I wish I traveled for work!"

And the people who do travel for work look at me knowingly and envision me fighting with a gate agent. Winning, obviously.

Due to these responses, I've come to the conclusion that most people have an unrealistic ratio in their minds of cool places in the world to lame places in the world. Pictures from last week scattered throughout this post. (Note the lack of palm trees.)



two frog's cafe



Alley Cafe



I've never written a blog in an airport before but I have an hour and a half before my flight and I already ate a shitty 20 dollar salad and almost got run over by a people moving cart (literally, I jumped 5 feet in the air when he turned his siren on one inch behind me), so I figured blogging would be safer than wandering the dangerous paths of terminal B fearing death. Or worse, delays.

 I've blogged about how much I love traveling in August. And actually, way back when of March 2011. I like that post because I'm so angry, and looking back, it was just a typical terrible flight. I just didn't know any better since I was then a member of the first group of people referenced above.



I hate most aspects of traveling, including packing, obviously. One area I haven't complained about publically yet: rental cars. It's my goal to complain openly about as many topics as possible. Maybe you don't think rental cars are that bad, but you are wrong.

 First off - I hate driving. So I'm already biased towards rental cars. Second off, I have a terrible sense of direction. I was walking back to my home health wing from the bathroom today and I got lost in the hospital. It was my 8th day there. Side note: I'm pretty sure a nun helped me back. (Do nuns always have to wear those black things on their heads? If so, it wasn't a nun.)

But still, some things suck consistently regardless of my inept driving skillset. All gas tanks are opened differently. Outside, inside, hidden lever, push, pull, driver side, passenger side. Once I literally had to GOOGLE ON MY IPHONE how to open a gas tank on one of my rentals. Proving my theory that Smart Phones are making people dumber.

Windshield wipers? Forget it. Defrost? Not a chance. Then again, I can't figure defrost out in any car, so I guess I can't discriminate against rentals in this scenario. Does anyone know how that works?

To return the rental car in Dallas today, I literally had to follow a treasure map to the rental car building - after driving completely through the airport, which may be bigger than the city of Madison. But when you got to the destination, instead of a chest of jewels they charge you $600 and make you ride a shuttle bus. The rental car builidng was approximately 54 miles from the airport.

Made it though, in plenty of time (obviously) and am now lined up to watch the presidential debate with an eclectic group of travellers. I'll try to be as controversial as possible. Just kidding. I'll probably play Scramble with Friends and buy candy.

I'm excited because I just spent 10 nights in a row in a hotel so I'm home tonight!! :) I've spent 58 nights in a hotel so far this year -- I'm super pumped when I think about 2 months of useless rent payments. At least I have this radiant sun tan from all my awesome, exciting, adventurous travels!

See ya later, Oooooooooooooooookhlahoma!.