Day 1 - Columbia, MD

We arrived today, actually, not getting to our hotel until 12:30 this morning, Eastern Time. It was one thing after another, a slow flight, slow baggage unload, an extremely slow Dollar rent-a-car line, and then one wrong turn on 695.

The flight was OK, despite Kendall not having her DS, and my laptop batter dying 2/3 of the way through her movie. She put up with it well, listened to some music, snagged my iTouch for games, and played with her stuffed animals. I guess I can't complain about her bringing 4 of them since the 2 on the plane kept her occupied for awhile.

After landing, I had the rude surprise of there being no rental cars at BWI. I specifically picked Dollar as they were one of the companies that said a counter in terminal. After the delays of getting to Enterprise off site in Seattle and Pensacola, I was hoping for a smoother trip.

Instead we stood at the curb, waiting 10-15 minutes for a shuttle in the humid Maryland night. It wouldn't have been so bad, except a police car was in the next section over and kept running his siren every minute or so. He was clearing cars that were waiting at the curb, where it's a no waiting zone, just a pickup zone. I get that the police wanted to keep the lanes moving, but it was silly to run the siren. I mean they would get behind a car, and run the siren. That car would take the hint after 10 very loud seconds of siren (or 20) and move on. Then the police car would move 15ft to the next car and repeat.

There were two cops, and I saw one get out of the car periodically. One could have just walked the 15 ft and knocked on the window, but apparently that is too much effort. Instead they had to blast everyone's eardrums in the area. Kendall complained constantly about it, and I agreed with her.

By the time the shuttle arrived, there were a lot of people. As keeping with the last few months of one thing going well while another goes wrong, the bus stopped literally right in front of us, so we got on and had a long crowded ride to the offsite rental place. It wasn't horrible since every car company was there, from Hertz to Enterprise. I thought that we would have more luck as we were off quickly and 3rd in line with Dollar. I saw about 20 people in line at Budget.

However it wasn't to be. Why does a rental car company have to take 10 minute to process a rental? I mean they have all my information, they could easily have me decide on fuel and everything else beforehand. It's dumb these days to try to stupid upsell as many people travel regularly. My time didn't take too long, but the first genius in line must have had something going on. It look almost 20 minutes to rent him a car, and with 2 people renting, it was slow going.

We finally got our Caliber, and Delaney gave me a "whoah, crank windows" when we got in. Once again, I'm amazed, and we had crank windows and manual doors. I gave Delaney directions and we headed out. He tried to read to me, but the directions didn't quite match with what I saw. We ended up turning the wrong way on 695, and then not having an exit to take for like 6 miles. So we turned around, arriving at our Extended Stay America at around 12:30. As a low budget place, they close the office at 11. So we had to call the national number, they called and woke up the clerk, who wasn't happy to see us. She wasn't a native US English speaker, didn't want to open the desk gate, sliding forms under for me to sign. We had a semi-effective communication exchange where I didn't get an Internet code (and didn't realize it until I woke up), got a smoking room (I had reserved non-smoking), and got a 3rd floor room when I asked for bottom floor. There is no health club, despite the note listed in the reservation.

I'm not sure if Expedia messed up or Extended Stay, but my money's on the latter. Expedia has served me well for years, even impressed me at times. In any case, I woke up, not well rested thanks to the thin walls and group of people that decided to keep music just loud enough to annoy until after 1:30am.

The kids were sleeping in, which was fine with me. I made arrangements to switch rooms later, learned about the health club, got an Internet code, and went running down the road. By the time I'd changed and was ready, the kids were awake, so we walked down to see Grandma Mary, my Mom staying in the same hotel. The kids stayed there, I did my 1.5mi and then showered.

Then it was off to see the cousins! We haven't seen them in 2 years, when they were 4, 2, and 2, so this was a surprise. They were shy, at least the 4 year old twins were, but didn't run and hide. Five year old Ravi took to Delaney right away, sticking close by to his new role model.

It was really great to sit and chat with my brother and sister-in-law, letting the kids play legos and other games around the house. Kendall showed off her stuffed tiger, and got one of the twins to show his dog. Delaney built things, and one of the twins had a "dollar store" in the upstairs hallway, selling pencils and other goodies. Later on Kendall ended up buying a small fabric blanket for one of her animals.

After a home cooked breakfast, more food than I've cooked in 2 weeks, we decided to head to the inner Harbor in Baltimore. We got down there, thinking we'd hit the aquarium, but it had a huge wait, not conducive to 4 year olds. Instead we took a tour of a submarine anchored there, and then chilled in Barnes and Nobles to avoid the June heat. After a nice dinner at Don Pablos, we then headed back to the house, and introduced the cousins to Bolt. They thoroughly enjoyed it, repeating lines afterwards with Kendall.

Delaney was a little sick all day, a chest cold with lots of coughing, so I loaded up on Nyquil and Dayquil for him to take to the conference.

Now I'm ready to call it a day and get up early to take Delaney to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.