I loved my time in Argentina, and I knew I had awesome friends there. Visiting with them this past week made me realize even more how awesome they are to me. I realized it has been nearly five years since the four of us were together, but as soon as we saw each other, nothing was different. We were immediately best friends again, and it was as if nothing had changed. I started to wonder what kind of friends I have like that at home. Answer... well, some, but not like Ashley, Fer, and Brad.
People always say things happen for a reason. There is a reason I met my wonderful friends in Argentina. More recently there must have been a reason I quit/lost my job. Not having to work Labor Day, meant I could make the trip to Vermont to send Ashley off with the love of her life. For those wondering... Yes I am very sad and almost stood up to say I object, but Dan (her husband) was one of the nicest guys I ever met. They seem so happy together, so I couldn't be happier to let her get away.
Thank goodness for losing my job and having a friend like Jody, who for some silly reason wanted to go tag along to Vermont for the adventure. We booked tickets and Jody inked herself into a world of craziness known as Brian's Argentina experience; except this time in Vermont.
DAY ONE: The idea was to leave at 0600 hours on Saturday (that's 6am), so we could arrive with plenty of time to enjoy the day. As with most of my adventures, especially my Argentina adventures, things never seem to go normal. Flight left Minneapolis as normal and arrived in Chicago. Then things got interesting. We were supposed to have a short layover, so Jody convinced me to go to the bar and get the vacation started. Gotta love beer for breakfast. Then, our flight got delayed a little. Then, it was delayed even more. We were fine though because we had a bar.
Five hours later, we boarded our plane. The pilot apologized for the delay and stated the captain's headrests were broken, and that is why there was the delay. Then, he said we needed to wait another 15 minutes to fuel up. People groaned, but remained calm until...
Midflight the stewardess came on the loud speaker and asked for a doctor. Apparently somebody was feeling sick. After being checked out, the decision was made that the person was stressed and overheating. To make that ONE person feel better, the air conditioner was put on full-blast, freezing us in the back of the plane. Good thing I brought a sweatshirt. No so good for Jody (Don't worry, I was a gentleman and offered my sweatshirt to her even though I didn't want to do it).
When we landed, we were told to stay in our seats because the medics had met us on the runway and were going to check on the person feeling sick. After a change of plans, we were told to exit the aircraft via stairs onto the runway. We were told if we felt sick, to go to the right, and if we felt healthy to stay left. When we exited there were fire trucks, ambulances, and paramedics all over with masks on grilling us with questions about whether we were okay.
Our bags that we had to check as we got on the plane were then re-routed to the baggage claim, so we had to go wait for our bags for 20 more minutes. Finally, we got our rental car, drove to the resort and arrived just in time for dinner. Dinner will have to be its own separate entry.
