I had an eventful trip to the Wohlfahrt Haus Dinner Theatre to design lighting for their upcoming production of “Annie Get Your Gun”. I got out of Madison and into Atlanta with no problems. My flight to Greensboro was delayed by 40 minutes due to maintenance issues on our plane — no big deal. Once we were about 25 minutes into our 45 minute flight, the captain came over the loudspeaker and said that we were having a small computer issue and protocol said they had to turn around and go back to Atlanta. Meanwhile, they cut all air conditioning (Atlanta was 103° Friday) either to save fuel or depressurize the cabin or both. We arrived safe and sound back in Atlanta, a bit sweaty, but all in one piece. In the meantime, my ride had arrived in Greensboro from Wytheville (2 hr. drive down the mountains) and would have to turn around and head back to Wytheville without me (he was in the show that night) as a second ride took off to fetch me from the airport.

I arrived in Greensboro 4.5 hours behind schedule to find that our entire plane’s worth of luggage was left in Atlanta. I guess in changing to the new plane, someone thought we’d be much happier and safer without any luggage packed below decks.

So my question is this: should I seek some sort of reimbursement for my trouble from Delta airlines? Or is this one of those “it just happens and it was my turn” thing? In my opinion, I at least deserve to get the frequent flier miles for my first trip half way to and from Greensboro.

Shane and I took a well-deserved and long overdue backpacking trip on the Superior Hiking Trail this week. With my limited availability this summer, I could only manage one night on the trail… Shane on the other hand, could easily take as many nights away from his PS2 as he would like — oh the joys of teaching, huh?

We did 5 miles in from Silver Bay to the East Palisade Creek site and back the next day. It was great to get outdoors again. The trail was surprisingly busy for a Sunday night. I was quite amazed at how dry everything was up north. Many streams have completely dried up, and the trail itself was bone-dry from start to finish — I’m used to trodding through pools of mud for more than half of all my other SHT trips of memory. Is this summer just a fluke? Or a sign of global climate change?