Seattle is surprisingly. . .SUNNY!!

I was wrong about my dad-in-laws operation - it's this morning, not yesterday. Yesterday Chris had to pick his sisters up at the airport.

I flew out of Manchester yesterday morning on Northwest to Detroit for my connecting flight. That was only about 1 hour 40 minutes (and no plane problems like earlier this week, ha ha).

Grabbed a sandwich and water to eat on the next flight, which would be almost five hours long. I tried to upgrade to first, but it was full. Pout.

The plane was pretty full, so there was someone in the middle seat. I had a window. Thankfully, we were all women and no one wanted to talk. My throat is sore and Chris said last night he thought I was getting a cold. I took my Airborne and a Benadryl. The latter knocked me out, so I slept most of the flight, listened to my iPod and read.

Got to Seattle and was shocked to see sunshine. You always hear how it's always raining in Seattle. Not true.

I'm here to speak for the Thurston County's prosecutor's office for their annual domestic violence/stalking conference.

I have to say this, I've checked bags in before and even with the largest airports (such as JFK, Boston, etc), it takes maybe 15 minutes to get them. Seattle took a whopping 40 minutes. That was when the luggage from my flight finally started to hit the baggage carousel.

I had to call the shuttle service to tell them I was waiting for my bags and would run over. I made it with literally three minutes to spare. I can't believe how inefficent Seattle's airport is.

There were four other people in the shuttle van. Because I didn't want to talk to save my voice, I turned on my iPod. The woman next to me was older and looked offended. Tough.

Then she wouldn't shut up. I could hear her, even over the radio podcast I was listening to. She sounded exactly like Sally Fields in the movie where she played an older woman. I don't think this woman gets out much. She kept exclaiming at how many trees there were, how green it was, how blue the sky was, the grass, the mountains. . .I was ready to scream. She threw in some "goshes," "oh mys" and other midwest phrases.

Two people were dropped of before us and the last three, including Ms. Fields, were going to the hotel I was staying at in Olympia. I was just praying she was not going to be at the conference.

Thankfully, no.

I was exhausted - traveled for over 13 hours, even though I slept a bit. I ordered room service and Chris called me a zillion times. I know he was worried about his dad, but I was just so tired and felt like crap.

I crashed at 7 pm (which would have been 10 pm back home) and slept until 5 am this morning.

Called Chris and he was waiting for his sisters to call him to let him know they were at the hospital, then he was going to head over. The operation is supposed to take about five hours.

I kept "talking to the ceiling" asking that Chris' dad get through the operation okay and be all right.

Now it's wait and see.

I grabbed some continental breakfast and am getting ready to check out at 10 am. I speak twice today, the first at 10:45 am as keynote, the other as a mini training session after lunch.

Then three of us speakers will be whisked away to the Radisson Hotel at the airport. My flight leaves pretty early in the morning, so this will be easier on me.

I do wish I could have stayed an extra day here. The hotel is two blocks from the marina and it looks like it would have been a fun day to walk around and see things. Oh well.

Cross your fingers for Chris' dad please.