DATELINE: Memphis, Tennessee Airport (644 miles from home), flying to Atlanta, Georgia (327 air miles from Memphis)
Hey Jake,
You know how much I travel for work? Well, I had a great trip recently and got to take Flat Stanley along! It was so much fun traveling with him and I got some special opportunities since he was along for the ride.
First step? Going to the airport and going through security. Since Stanley doesn’t fly as much as I do, I made sure he knew the rules before we went to the airport. Some of the rules are about liquids going through and others are about the screening. Sorry to say, the rules made me put Flat Stanley through a different machine than I went through but he went through it with a smile on his face the whole time. He went with my purse, jacket, etc and kept an eye on things.
People not made out of paper go through other machines called metal detectors & body scanners. That’s where I went through and once the TSAs were sure all was well, I rejoined Stanley and got ready to go to our gate & get on the airplane.
As we were getting on the airplane, I asked if we could say hello to the pilots and they were nice enough to show Stanley some of the controls! They even let us take a picture! And we got great seats in the front of the plane too so we could catch what was going on with other Delta airplanes & the ground crews handling our luggage & directing traffic! (Fun Delta Air Lines blog here I stumbled on.)
When we arrived in Atlanta, we got our luggage and needed to get to the hotel. We decided to catch a cab. There was a really nice lady working there who called cabs for us and she let Flat Stanley help! She seemed to smile as big as Stanley!
Then it was time to get to work!
Because I work with farmers, we were in Atlanta for some really big meetings with farmers from all across the US, We spent time talking to some of the people I work with about cotton farming. One of the people Stanley met was named Keylon Gholston. His job is finding new cotton plants that will do really well on cotton farms across the US. (Deltapine rocks!)
I don’t know if everyone in your class knows about how cotton grows from a seed to a plant to produce the lint that you find on Q-Tips, cotton balls, etc but my favorite use is the jeans and hoodies or t-shirts that I wear! Mr. Gholston even knows farmers in North Carolina who like to plant Deltapine cotton, Dekalb corn or Asgrow soybeans!
We also got a chance to visit with some farmers including Bob Walker – he’s a farmer who lives really close to Memphis. And we’re really good friends. In fact, he’s such a good friend that he let Alicia come out and “help” with cotton picking in October. I think you saw photos of that on the internet. We also checked out some things you can buy at the meeting like koozies with a cotton logo on them (but you know I already had some because I sent some to you & your family!)
I was working and in a meeting and my eye started bothering me. I have to tell you I got worried Jake. When I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, my eye was really, really red. It didn’t look like it was supposed to at all. And since I was so far from my doctor, I got a little nervous.
So I checked with some of my friends who know Atlanta really well and found a doctor there who could look at my eye and see if it was going to be okay. It kind of made it more fun to have Stanley along cause I had fun taking photos for your letter while I was waiting. One was just in the waiting room and then later I took one in the treatment room…. The doctor ran a lot of tests and told me it was kind of like a bruise and would be fine after a little while.
We had a crazy storm while I was there. And I was a bit worried about having Stanley out in all the freezing rain, snow and craziness. But he enjoyed getting a look at things from my hotel. We were on the 28th floor so we could see a really long way. Everywhere we looked there was snow & ice! It was really weird to see almost no cars because Atlanta’s famous for traffic.
With the extra time in the hotel, we got to have a nice long lunch. I had soup and a sandwich but Stanley said he’d already eaten. Somehow he was able to make room for dessert though! Cheesecake with some blueberrys to go on top! We were making friends along the way too and enjoyed finding out our waiter was from The Netherlands. He thought it was cool that Nannae goes there for work!
One night that Stanley stayed at the hotel to watch TV and I went out in the bad weather, the bus service was escorted by policemen! Really, our bus had police cars going along with us. I guess Atlanta thinks farmers are really important people! It got to be a long trip though because the bus got stuck on a hill! The ice was too slippery for us to go up the hill!
But the roads DID FINALLY clear up and we were able to get a cab back to the airport. We were really happy to see the sun shining again and be able to head out again!
But first, we would have to do some things at the airport. There were a lot of people who had been wanting to go places so we went there early and patiently stood in line. We had to check our luggage and that line was longer than I’d like to remember but there were nice people there to chat with!
This time since Stanley knew more about what we had to do, I let him help. He even held my driver’s license as we went through the line to talk to the officers. But they don’t like you taking too many pictures so I won’t show those!
With extra time on our hands, we went to get our lunch at the airport but got distracted when we started talking to a guy who’s in the army. He’s stationed in Alaska and was returning to duty after having a break for the holidays. There’s an awful lot of snow in Alaska so we stopped complaining about Atlanta’s weather really quickly! The plane was able to leave and we were sure glad to get to fly out!
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