Saturday, April 15, 2006

We arrived back in Bloomington last evening. We had gone first to Beech Grove, Indiana, where Michael did a lunchtime talk. Then we got to spend the rest of the day in Indy and then stay the night! We used our time to go up and walk on the Monon Trail.

We also went to the Runner's Forum where Michael got new shoes and I ordered new ones. They didn't have my exact shoes, so Mike O, our salesman, turned us on to a company he works with called myrunningshoes.com. They had TWO pairs of my favorite shoes, so I ordered both. They're going to be coming from a small store in Utah!

We had breakfast at the little restaurant in the Airport Radisson, and then headed off to the airport. The flight to Dallas was easy, and then we had a 3 hour layover. We used that time to walk! Dallas FW airport is an amazing place for fitness walking! It's just huge, taking us 15 minutes to go from the far end of the C terminal to the far end of the A terminal, and that was at a pretty serious clip. (No one stares if you walk fast in an airport! LOL!)

Then we boarded the prop plane to Longview. It was 3-across, and there was a tiny aisle separating Michael and me. But the worst part was that it was LOUD.

When we left Indy on Wednesday, it had still been kind of cold, so Texas gave us a nice little preview of spring. All the trees were well-leaved and it was warm and pleasant!

We got our rental car at the cute little Longview airport and easily found the Wingate Inn -- a business-oriented hotel on the "loop" and close to everything.

Dinner was at Johnny Carino's. We feasted on Chicken and Pasta Gorgonzola, soup for me, salad for Michael, and then we each had our own dessert! Stuffed? You betcha.

Thursday we had most of the day to just mess around. We started it by walking on the linear park trail close to the hotel off 4th street. It was lovely, and I took some pics.

Then we went to the mall, had lunch, and poked around a bit. Michael had a little nap while I worked the USA Today's Sudoku puzzles for the past 2 weeks.

Michael's dinner talk at Barron's went great! AND the dinner was delicious too.

We collapsed into bed early and headed off to the airport after we breakfasted in the Wingate lobby. (We love those prepare-it-yourself lobby breakfasts!)

Security was .. cute, and we climbed the stairs to our little puddle-jumper to Dallas. The flight attendant said that we were cruising at 6000 feet, but we think that she meant 16,000. (Didn't she?) We were low, but not THAT low!

We walked a bit in Dallas, but not for our official walk of the day, since we just had a bit over an hour layover here. This was long enough to establish that the gate in the C terminal was not what we needed after we walked there from A. Instead, our gate WAS in A! LOL! So we found it, got pizza, and then waited the short time till they were ready for us.

We walked the Monon Trail upon our return to Indy, ate at Shapiro's, and then desserted at Handel's! :)