Always Travel with a Man in Uniform

We're back from a weekend conference in Kansas City. It was a good trip overall. The flight there was fine, but we did get delayed 4 hours on the return trip to Chicago. As usual, rain caused several planes to be cancelled or delayed into the windy city. We were among the lucky and at least were home by 9 pm on Sunday.

The biggest lesson I learned this weekend: always travel with a man in uniform. Do you know how many perks and priviledges you can get?! Seriously! Ken wore his uniform on the to and from trip and we were treated pretty good I tell you. Wearing what were formerly called BDUs (I'm not exactly sure what they're called now), Ken and I were able to cut everyone in line when going through security and we were upgraded to first class BOTH TIMES! Can you believe it? I've never sat in first class in my life, and here I am getting it on two flights! Did you know they give you real glass glasses to drink out of in first class? The seats are awfully luxurious and there's more room and no screaming children. We got all the refills of soda and snack bags we could want. It was shameless, I tell you. We were a little disappointed, however, that there were no hot towels or slippers. :)

Of course, Ken was greeted by many kind people throughout the airport, many who shook his hand, thanked him, and welcomed him home. I guess just because he was wearing a uniform they assumed he was either on his way there or home. I was still touched by how many strangers took the time to stop, shake his hand, and thank him. Ken doesn't like all the attention, but I thought it was nice.

Here's a picture of us at the banquet on Saturday night. Neither one of us cared for the meal though. The chicken was ok, but they served a side of artichoke hearts. Really now, who gives a bunch of meat and potatoes soldiers a side of artichoke hearts? There was one Captain at the table who liked them, so we all piled our artichoke hearts on his place and it became a challenge whether or not he could eat all of them. He did. We all thought he'd be sick the next day: artichoke hearts and jaggerbombs are, I believe, a lethal combination. But I spoke to his wife and she said he made it through the night just fine.

We're back to work and then looking forward to a week at home with nothing major planned. It'll be good to finally have a weekend at home.