I didn’t stay out late with everyone at the tower club, but was still up past midnight going over my slides. Then it was up at 6am to get over and set up the recorders in each presentation room.

Most of the setups were straight forward. One of the rooms however (the ballroom) did not have audio out, so we could not hook the recorder up directly to the room. We will see how well it does.

It took forever, but we got into Springfield around 11:30am.

Luis, Karen, Randall and Jake all had workshops starting at 1pm - so Traci and I dropped them at the hotel and we took the minivan back to Avis at the airport.

The plan was to take the shuttle back that was being provided by the conference. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the shuttle. After an hour, I had met some other attendees, but there was no ride to be found. We called the hotel, but they offered little help.

During the next hour, we made several calls talked to all of the other shuttles that passed by. Surprise, surprise, the shuttle had been circling, but was labeled “limousine service”. It turns out that there were signs at the airport and on the shuttles during the Saturday rush, but they had not been put back up on Sunday. Doh.

When I finally got the the University, I let the commitee know and they quickly sent someone out to reslove the issue.

So the flight was canceled after hours of delays…

No more flights out of Denver.

Next possible flight option wouldn’t get to Springfield till late Sunday evening. Who knew that the Denver airport shuts down at 6pm on a Saturday?

We decided that it would be better to drive. At 12+ hours it might be grueling. But really, it is the only option at this point.

Hours later, with 3 new friends: Randall, Jake and Traci (two of whom are are attending the conference) - we had rented a van and were on the road.

Even with GPS, we initially took some wrong turns (through tolls), but quickly got back on coarse.

Then…

An hour outside of Denver, the check engine light started blinking and the the engine started stuttering.

Now were stuck at a Denny’s waiting for a tow.

We were supposed to have a 2hr layover in Denver. Now going on 3 with the sign still just blinks “DELAYED”

At least Luis and Karen are here to keep me company. (more…)