New Orleans!

On Monday I had a thrilling trip up to Chicago.  One of the pilots and I had to drive up to get our Schengen Visas so we can go to Europe.  The trip was pretty uneventful and I couldn't understand anything on the French TV or anything that the person working there was saying.  I just gave them all my forms and copies of IDs and pictures.  I hope I got the right thing.  The French Consulate is on the 37th floor of some really tall building on Michigan Ave.  Here's the view from the window:

Ah, Chicago.  Also, one of the bridges was up, and I had never seen one of the bridges folded up, so I took this picture:

Now, on to the more exciting part of the story. 

I'm sitting on my bed at about 10:00 on Tuesday morning, petting Annabel and wondering what I'm going to do all day.  I had some plans that I was quite happy with.  Then I get "the call".  There's a trip that's come up, I have to take it since Mary already has a trip this week.  Oooohkaaaay.  Where to?  New Orleans?  Alright, schedule clear, not a problem!  I make some alert calls, change my Facebook status, pick up my dry-cleaning, get some cash, and make myself presentable.

There were no pax out of Champaign, so we left a little early.  I got in and rounded up the troops.  Dinner at Juan's Flying Burrito, where I ate the entire freaking huge burrito, then on to Mid-City Yacht Club.  There were no yachts there, but I thought maybe it should be called Mid-City Yat Club.  Anyway, a good time was had by all and here is proof:

Also, this happened:

The next day we went to Fort Collins, CO.  Nothing too exciting happened here.  We went to lunch at Chipotle, where one of the pilots doubted my ability to eat a whole burrito.  So of course I had to eat the whole thing.  I sat on the couch in the pilots lounge for the rest of the afternoon and watched Kath & Kim.  It's my new favorite show!  A cute pilot from some other plane sat down next to me on the couch, but moved away shortly after when I was laughing crazily at my computer.  I took this picture of the plane with the mountains in the background:

Maybe I should be a postcard photographer.

We got back to New Orleans around 10:00 that night, and made it back to the hotel around 10:30.  My key wouldn't open my door.  I was feeling cranky at this point.  All I wanted to do was go to bed so I could wake up in the morning and go home.  I went back to the desk, where the pilots were having the same problem.  Apparently, if there's nothing in your room when housekeeping cleans it and there still isn't anything there by 9:00pm, they assume you aren't coming back and give your room away.  This makes no sense, since we had reserved it for two nights and hadn't checked out after the first night.  I think they were trying to scam us, but they were relatively pleasant about it and gave us new rooms.  What a pain.

So now I'm sitting on my bed once more, happily petting Annabel.  I just had another flight come up.  I have to be at work at 3:00am.  I think I'd better start getting things together so I can go to bed.