En route to #50

In all my rushing around to tie up loose ends prior to departing for Hawaii, I never got to blog about the fact that IT'S HERE! (Literally sitting in my seat, first class this go round- going out with a bang!) One if these days ill learn how to blog properly from phone, so I apologize about format and brevity...

Yesterday I took the day off work to pack, run errands, and just decompress. Once I picked up my shirt I had made- everything finally started sinking in 

This will go fabulous with my Wonder Woman stars skirt, but unfortunately mom was hemming it for me since it was long and I won't see the whole outfit together till we're actually in Hawaii tonight!

I went on a quick 5 miler after picking up the shirt and would you believe I actually starting crying during the run just thinking about what race day is going to feel like? I have so many emotions going on, but the biggest is just being so overjoyed that a lofty goal I set a little over 3 years ago is finally being met! I'm still astonished at how much this experience has enriched my life- new friends, travel, sense of purpose, and the biggest reward- finding my niche and gaining confidence in who I am and what I aspire to be.

Next time you hear from me ill be in tropical paradise - if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook- I apologize in advance for my obnoxious photos... Now time to MOVE THAT PLANE (said with inflection of HGTVs "move that bus!")

Hope ya'll have a fabulous day!!

Hawaii finalized and how government shut down postponed state #48

Last week was crazy highs, then lows, then highs again.
Wednesday was a HUGE testament to how when something AMAZING happens, there has to be a counterpoint to bring you back down to earth.

Let's rewind.

HIGH
Maui Oceanfront 1/2 is January 19, 2014. This is my last hoorah, the big 5-0 and my parents are coming along for support and to spend a week with me in paradise. Hotel booked for the Wailea Beach Marriott Resort....

Hotel down, next up, figuring out the flights. Flying to Hawaii is a science due to the time difference, where your layovers and connections are etc that I didn't really want to spend hours finding the perfect flight so I just called my travel agent I use for work trips.
Seriously within 5 min I had my flights booked with minimal layovers and for under $1,000- EASY.

I shared my itinerary with my dad and he wasn't too keen that I would arrive in Maui 5 hours before them and thought it would be nice if we were on the same 8+ hour flight into Maui. Unfortunately timing for me to sit jdown and re-work my itinerary wasn't a luxury I could have because I was leaving that day for work travel and I was swamped. I gave my dad my agent's number and sent her an email with the heads up my dad was calling to change a few things around and to just charge the fees to my card.

Long story short--- I get a call from my dad stating he cancelled my flight, re-booked to match my parents, and UPGRADED me to first class with them because "first class to Hawaii is where its at" according to him. Best of all this was my 'congrats you spent a downpayment on a house for your adventures and now you're done' gift. I was completely speechless that not only do I get to share this incredible moment in my life with my parents, but that they wanted to take the burden of the most expensive state off of me. I really do have an incredible amount of support from them. Needless to say I was on cloud 9 and left Nashville en route to Charlotte for work trip with a little spring in my step.
***************************

LOW
Merely a few hours later I'm waiting to deboard my plane & and am checking my email  and see a VERY disappointing message for the upcoming weekend ...

The first 8 miles run through a National Park- thus with government shut down causing all parks to be closed, race is a no go---- gah. I had a mini freak out and decide, no sweat, I'll still go and just run my own race of one and as long as its 13.1, that's fine. I don't have a lot of wiggle room, so I figure my racing, my rules this late in the game. I call my gf to let her know my plan and then she mentions that all monuments in DC are protected by security guards so the public can't view them, thus sight seeing really wouldn't be an option.

side rant: Let's waste MORE money by paying a bunch of guards to block monuments for potential weeks on end, while we furlough hundreds of thousands who aren't getting paid... makes so much sense. End rant: 

I've actually never been to DC before, thus I've been waiting for a race that is near my gf and DC so I could cross a state off and still get in a bucket list item of learning all the history of the district. After a lot of milling it over, I decide to go ahead and move my trip around and go out there in November instead of October, thank goodness I"m flexible as this is 1 day before I'm supposed to head out.  It was actually easy to do which brings me to my next point 

*** I cannot stress enough how much I've learned to book flights THROUGH THE AIRLINES ITSELF and not through the expedias, orbitz, travelocity etc. I still use them to find what the cheapest flight will be, THEN I go to said airline and book it.(so far its always been same price) I've had so many hiccups with  delays, missed, flights, etc and they won't always help you unless you book through them- case in point was leaving Montana, I didn't blog about it, but our flight was late leaving Billings and it caused EVERYONE to miss their connections in Denver and having to stay the night. I met a friend that weekend and we were on same flight back- she had to re-book her own travel and pay for her own hotel room because she did everything through a different site and not the airline, I felt so bad for her.***

My flight to VA was through Southwest, by far my FAVORITE airlines, so it was as easy as clicking 'change my flight' then choosing my dates, and I was done- bam! Virginia will still be state #48 since Oklahoma wasn't planned until week prior to Thanksgiving.

HIGH

Due to having a whole weekend at home in Nashvegas, I was finally able to experience a local pumpkin patch! (I've been to 2 now and they were in Louisville and San Diego) Although it was a sweaty, humid 85 degrees, still had a blast with the 3 mazes they had, hay ride, nature walk, COWS!, and watching the kiddos.  Guess switching race weekends wasn't so bad after all.. 

finished in 9 minutes instead of 15... ballin

Overall the HIGHS outweighed the major low, so I guess everything worked itself out!