A quick weekend away

This past weekend I joined my sister and her partner Sarah for a surprise "mini vacation" in Milwaukee to celebrate my mom's birthday - I won't give away her age, let's just say it's a milestone birthday.

Jessi and Sarah kidnapped my mom Friday evening and drove to Milwaukee, telling her only that they were taking her somewhere for the weekend. Earlier that day I had flown in from San Diego so I would already be at the hotel when they arrived. I successfully made my mom's jaw drop when I snuck up on them in the parking lot...

It was a fun trip, as well as one of those trips where anything that could go wrong DID go wrong!

First the fun part - we spent a couple of hours shopping at this huge antiques warehouse during the day, and Saturday night we saw the comedian Wanda Sykes perform at Riverside Theater.

The "hiccups" involved travel, of course. On my way to Milwaukee, I had a long travel delay after our connecting flight out of Phoenix, which was starting to taxi down the runway, abruptly came to a halt because the pilot was receiving signals in the cockpit that there was engine trouble. So we sat on the runway for 90 minutes while the mechanics rebooted their electronics system, troubleshooted, and made sure everything was okay.

On Saturday afternoon, on our way to lunch after antiques shopping, one of the rear tires on Sarah's car went completely flat in downtown Milwaukee. Luckily it occurred when we were on a slow-moving side street and not flying down the highway at 60 mph! It took a couple of hours but we were able to get assistance from AAA, then a brand new set of tires at a local Midas that was able to fit her in without an appointment.

Then of course on Sunday, everything was going smoothly until a woman on our plane passed out in the aisle and the plane had to make an emergency landing in Denver. She was okay, fortunately, but we sat on the runway for a long time while they helped her off the plane, restocked all the medical equipment that had been opened, and filled out a bunch of paperwork that would allow us to get a new flight into San Diego. I ended up getting home several hours later than planned, but all's well that ends well.

It was definitely a memorable trip!