Out of the Midwest By the Skin of My Teeth

I returned to D.C. just before the stroke of midnight last Friday, after having just missed the ice storm that was set to sweep from Texas and blaze through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska (where I was for three days) through the Great Lakes.

Travel Woes: My United Airlines flight from Lincoln was scheduled to leave at 12:25 pm, then got delayed to 2:00 p.m. Went through security, only to be told that the flight was again delayed until 5:30 p.m. because of "weather" in Chicago, according to a ticket agent with a bad perm and a triple chin. That delay lengthened to 6:30 p.m. Which meant that I had missed any chance of getting to D.C. that night on United.

Walked back to the ticket counter to see if I could catch any flight out of Lincoln. Watched a chubby young woman in a pink sweater freak out because she couldn't get home to Charlotte, N.C. Listened to other people planning to rent cars to get to their destinations instead of spending the night - and possibly the weekend - in Lincoln. Where the temperature had fallen to 15 degrees and was starting to snow.

After 45 minutes, I managed to cancel my United flight and book the last flight that would get me to Washington that evening: on Northwest, routed through Detroit, instead of the Windy City, where it was sleeting.

Went through security yet again, where I was given the full screening (the one that's just shy of searching one's body cavities) because it looked like I had just purchased a last-minute ticket. Security personnel rummaged through my suitcase as I nervously watched passengers board the flight. I was the last person on the plane. Whew.

Oh yeah, and running?: I met many folks on my three-day trip to this Plains state, and a good half-dozen of them made comments about my being a runner. One said, "I was wondering what someone who runs 10Ks for fun was going to be like."

All confessed that they had Google'd me before our meetings, to get a better idea of who they'd be dealing with. Veddy, veddy interesting.