Christmas in Iowa

December 25 – 30, 2021

Here it is at the end of March and I’m just getting around to posting about our Christmas trip to Iowa.

Of course, if you’ve read my last few posts, you’d understand, I’ve been crazy busy.

Things are finally starting to settle down enough for me to sit down and take the time to make some “clean posts” including entries into my Photo Diary.

I only really have two major events to post about, the first is our Christmas trip to Ottumwa, IA.

Christmas Departure

After having spent some time with Jarrod and dropping Ash at the dog sitter’s on Christmas Eve, Brandy and I woke up early Christmas morning and made our way to the Albuquerque International Sunport. We found a spot in long-term parking and carted our bags through the lot to the terminal. We checked in at the ticket counter, checked our bags and headed up to the concourse.

We were dressed in matching Christmas pajamas so I’m sure we looked ridiculous, but who cares? We were having fun.

We stopped for a quick bite at one of the numerous eateries in the airport then made our way to our gate where we waited for our plane.

We were finally called to board and quickly realized we were going to be flying in a nearly empty plane. Sure enough, by the time we took off, the plan was at maybe 7% capacity.

We had an hour and a half stop at DFW so tried once more to eat, but the place we stopped didn’t really have much to choose from, so we just split an order of loaded fries, then waited at the gate for our connecting flight.

Once more, the connecting flight was nearly empty so we pretty much had our pick of seats. Having the option of putting a seat between us certainly made the flights much more comfortable.

Arrival in Des Moines

We arrived at Des Moines International Airport much earlier than our scheduled arrival time so we had to wait a bit for Brandy’s friend, Hilary, to show up for our ride back to Ottumwa.

She finally showed up with her husband, Aaron (who, for reasons lost on me, is called Wilbur by Hilary and Brandy.) We made the hour and a half-ish drive to Ottumwa, finally arriving at Brandy’s parents’ house around 4:30 or so.

Hilary left to take her husband home but soon returned bearing gifts. Being a maker, she had made wonderful tumblers for everyone present. Mine was a very cool Dodgers cup and Brandy got one with a wonderful winter night sky and trees silhouetted at the bottom from me, and one from Hilary featuring the opening lyrics to her favorite Blue October song, Fear, with the singer Justin Furstenfeld gazing into the spotlight.

I Forgot What Happened

At this point, so much time has passed since the trip, over three months, that I don’t remember every thing we did, or more specifically, in what order we did them. In no particular order, we:

Went to the Williamsburg Outlet Mall
- Had lunch at Bryant’s Chill & Grill (I had the Rodeo Burger: “Half-pound beef, cheddar cheese, bacon, fried onions, and tangy barbecue sauce drizzled over the top.” It was surprisingly good. All reported their meals were good as well.)
Went to Iowa City, Coralville, and North Liberty to check out locations of some potential spots for employment for Brandy and me
Had loose meat sandwiches from Canteen Lunch in the Alley
Took a drive around town for some pictures to post on my Photo Diary
watched Brandy’s step-dad turn some wood in his shop
Had Iowa chops (the pork version of a porterhouse steak; thick-cut, bone-in with tenderloin still attached.) Craig smoked them in his Traeger.
and we spent a couple of days doing not a lot of anything

This is the problem with waiting so long to post: because my memory is so poor, if I don’t post right away, or even as it happens, I forget a lot of the details.

What I do remember though is that it was rainy and snowy and cold, but it was a wonderful holiday, and an amazing trip…

That is… until our return.

Delays

We set out on the late morning on the 30th to swing by another outlet mall in Des Moines for Sue to return something she’d purchased at the Williamsburg outlet mall. Once that was done, we headed down the road to the Des Moines airport only to find an outrageous line leading into the drop-off area.

We finally made it up, offloaded our bags, said our good-byes to Craig and Sue, and headed in to the terminal.

The Des Moines airport was absolutely packed. The delay getting in to the drop-off area made me a little nervous about making it to our gate in time. We checked our bags where we were told that our connecting flight from Denver was already an hour late. We were initially scheduled to land in Albuquerque at about 8:30 pm local time so now we were looking at 9:30. We shrugged it off as best we could and headed to security where the line was just as long. We finally made it through and headed to our gate with some time to spare.

We stopped at an airport restaurant to grab a bite before boarding our plane. The plane was packed. Brandy and I were separated by several rows and I wound up wedged in a middle seat between a couple travelling together.

We taxied off fairly quickly but were held up for some reason or another and we didn’t actually take off until 30 minutes later.

We landed in Denver at around 6:30 and taxied toward the terminal but we didn’t pull up to a gate. We were told there was still a plane in our gate so had to wait for them to leave. We sat for about 20 minutes, then we were told that we’d been given a new gate so we started moving toward the terminal, only to turn in a big circle winding up back where we’d been before. We waited for about another 20 minutes before we finally taxied up to the gate, but then we were told there was no one to drive the jetway up to the plane. We waited about another 10 minutes before we were finally set and ready to disembark.

The plane emptied into the jetway where were greeted by a closed door, stopping us from entering the airport. We all stood in the jetway for about another 10 minutes before the doors opened and we set off to our next gate.

The gate where we were supposed to pick up our connecting flight was occupied by a plane that was bound for Texas. San Antonio, I think? I don’t recall. That’s irrelevant though. The point is that plane sat there as our scheduled departure time of 8:30 came and went with no movement. Our departure time suddenly jumped to 9:30, but the plane sat there.

Shortly after, a gate change was announced, telling us that we’d be departing from the other end of the concourse. We gathered our stuff and headed down the road, passing a customer service booth with an INSANE line of people waiting to make arrangements for delayed and canceled flights. If I had to guesstimate, I’d say there was a good two or three hour wait to get through that line.

We got to our new gate and sat and waited. And waited. And waited. Our departure time kept bumping up: 9:30. 10:00. 10:15. 10:30. Finally, three hours after our initially scheduled departure time, our plane arrived and we boarded.

We were both cranky and exhausted but glad to be in the air.

We finally landed in Albuquerque at 11:30 and headed to baggage claim. We waited for EVER before the carousel even started, then we sat and waited for our bags.

Our bags were the last two on the carousel.

By the time we left the airport, it was 12:30. We paid the $75 for parking and headed home, finally walking in at 1:00 in the morning.

Conclusion

As I mentioned earlier in the post, it was a great trip filled with happiness and Christmas spirit I hadn’t experienced in some time; two of my recent Christmases had been spent alone, in 2018 and 2019. Being able to see family during the holidays made the trip extra special, even if the return flight was an absolute nightmare.

As always, I have pictures from our trip on my Photo Diary page; be sure to check those out.

And once more, I thank you for stopping by my little corner of the internet. I appreciate you.

-Phil

Post-Script

Shortly after our return to Albuquerque, we recieved word that Brandy’s friend’s mom had contracted COVID and was not expected to survive. She sadly passed away on January 13. We quickly packed up and were back on the road that evening to drive back to Ottumwa. That day, Brandy’s friend was diagnosed with COVID and became very ill.

I took my work laptop on this trip and worked from the dining room of Brandy’s parents’ home while Brandy helped her friend with funeral arrangements. The funeral was the following week. The high temperature the day of the funeral was 5 degrees with a wind chill of 26 below zero. Needless to say, the grave-side portion of the funeral was very brief.

We wound up spending another week in Ottumwa not even a month after we had spent a week there. This was certainly not a pleasure trip, but during the trip, I did have an initial interview with UnityPoint Health for the Epic Analyst position I ultimately accepted the offer for and began working on March 7.

I have another post following shortly to report on my first ever cold-weather camping trip. What an adventure that was; make sure you stay tuned for that.

Until then…

-P