New Orleans - en route (Thurs)

I thought I would post our day-by-day accounts so y'all can see what the big fuss was this past weekend...

All I know is that it is -12 here right now, and on Saturday in New Orleans it was 80. My body rejects the frigidness. Here is day one - Jeff's emails to his family before our departure....

*****************************************************
From: Jeffrey Hartman
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 8:59 AM
To: Al, Lois, Jennifer, Jason
Subject: Hell has frozen over

Well it appears Hell has frozen over...or at least Las Vegas....

We were headed there for a weekend vacation with Jess's parents....but apparently the MN luck has worked against us. Yesterday, Las Vegas received the most snowfall since 1974. 4 inches has shut down the city including ALL flights into and out of the airport. This is worst case scenario for us as we are all flying standby and there is an entire extra day of people trying to get onto today's airplanes......Things aren't looking good for Friday either.....

If it weren't for bad luck.......

Still stuck in cold MN,
Jeff
*****************************************************
From: Jeffrey Hartman
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 9:43 AM
To: Al, Lois, Jennifer, Jason
Subject: Re: Hell has frozen over

PLAN B

The Kienow Family and I are now headed to New Orleans....talk about shooting from the hip. Karen, Randy and Amy are all currently at the airport already trying to get onto a plane to Vegas, but now we'll head South instead. WILD.

Now we just have to find a place to stay and something to do.....

The MGM Grand was nice enough to provide full refunds for our rooms, Cirque De Soleil and Stomp. Since no planes are landing, it sounded like not many people are making it to Vegas this weekend.

Till the next update,
Jeff
*****************************************************
So, in the course of about an hour and a half, we totally changed where we were going, cancelled our hotels and show tickets, found and reserved a new hotel, booked a new flight, and were stressed to the max (at least I was).

This was all going on while I was 'working' on Thursday morning. To be fair, I had 2 meetings I attended, and was engaged in!!! Needless to say, it was crazy. I managed to rush home, pick up Jeff, drop him off at the airport, but I did NOT have time to go to the free employee parking and ride the shuttle over. I ended up paying to park (it was $64 for the 3.5 days). Worth it - I made it on the plane!!

Actually, we all made it - first class with meal service even!!! 'Twas wonderful.