Traveling, catching up, class tomorrow

Mama and I flew to Pensacola Monday and flew back yesterday. Monday, we had to be at the airport a 5 am. Yesterday we were at the airport a 2 pm – much easier to accommodate that time frame. Both flights were good enough. At least everyone was fairly tolerant of the facemask issue. Mama and I did our best to comply so we would not promote a bad witness, but we took every advantage we could to lower or remove our face coverings in the airport and on the flight.

On both flights Mama was able to make several good contacts for Color Street with both passengers and the flight attendants. On the flight to Pensacola, Mama interacted with a group of four or five ladies traveling together. They seemed very interested. One of the ladies even remarked, “One of us needs to start selling this stuff!” We will see what comes of that. Both of the stewardesses were interested in the appliques. On the flight home, Mama shared the information with our row mate and that young lady seemed excited about the business opportunity. And again, both the flight attendants were interested in the Color Street nail strips and graciously received Mama gift bags. Though one of the attendants was male, he took a gift bag of the Color Street items Mama had prepared to share with his mother and grandmother.

Because our flight was so early Monday we were able to spend a short time on Pensacola Beach before driving to Andalusia, Alabama (about 80 miles from Pensacola). Once there I checked in with the company there to let them know I was in town and see how the training area was set up for the class I would present. The host for the company is a gentleman I had met on multiple occasions, so there was a bit of familiarity there. We spent a half hour or more catching up before Mama and I headed to our hotel. The hotel in Andalusia was not the best one we have stayed in, but it was not the worst either. Mama was worried because the hotel room opened up to the parking lot and we were on the ground level. The hotel was not fully booked so the noise levels were not a problem.

Mama dropped me off at the office just before 7 am. That gave me an hour to set things up for the class and ensure the hookup from my computer to the TV was successful. That connection took some intervention from a local IT representative to accomplish, but I was able to start the class on time. I was done with the class by 1 pm. The class was scheduled to end earlier but there was a lot of very pertinent discussion during the class which extended it by a half hour or so. The participants did not mind the extra time spent together, but by the time the class concluded everyone was ready to go, so the classroom emptied very quickly. It was raining heavily when I called Mama to let her know I had finished and as packing up my equipment.

We had been under a tornado watch since early morning but had not been close enough to the storm center to be affected by a tornado – according to my hosts – but the storm over or location was producing some very strong winds and a lot of rain. Mama waited where she was before making the short drive to come and pick me up. Even though the rain had slacked up a bit during those few minutes, both of us got pretty wet getting me and my suitcase into the vehicle. We ate lunch in Andalusia and drove back to Pensacola in the rain. Basically, we shopped our way back to the hotel, hitting the stores Mama had mapped out for inspection while we were in the area.

Wednesday, I worked from the hotel until lunchtime. After spending a little time on the beach, we ate lunch, filled the rental vehicle and headed to the airport. Mama and I were not concerned about getting there too early because the airport is relatively small, however, there were a lot of passengers going through the security area. That process took longer in Pensacola that it had in Dallas and passengers were clearly frustrated by the pace being kept by the TSA workers. Both flights were completely full, but we were on a larger plane coming back so it was more comfortable even though we were three to a row versus just two seats on each side of the aisle. We had a very bumpy, bouncy, wabbly landing in Dallas, but we made it even though Mama was worrying that we would not.

Trace met us at the airport only a few minutes after our bags were spit out onto the baggage claim. Unfortunately, we all missed church due to the timing of our flight. We are happily home again, and all our animals breathed a sigh of relief to hear her greeting as Mama went about doing the morning feeding.

Now Mama and I have to catch up to those things left undone while we traveled. It is not a huge list of chores, just a lot of little, busy ones. Many of which involve our garden and the yard. The remainder are household issues that we will quickly gain the upper hand on in short order. As much as I like to travel, it is good to be home.

I will be teaching a class tomorrow, so I have to make the most of today to get caught up to the administrative follow up for the class I taught Tuesday. The paperwork involved in the in-person classes is a bit more cumbersome than what is required for the online classes, but I do enjoy the face-to-face classes when I have to chance to present them.

Back to the routines of home life.