The Weather Couldn't Stop Me

Well, I'm finally in Billings, Montana. Currently, I'm sitting in my room at the Rimrock Inn, having just pulled my clothing out of the space-saving vacuum bags. The Rimrock is definitely nothing to write home about, so I won't. (well, maybe I'll put up a couple of pictures from the hotel/the view/training later on, we'll see).

It's been a crazy week. I've been going nuts trying to pack all my stuff and get ready to start, so I'm really tired. I was up especially late Friday night moving boxes of my stuff downstairs, finishing a couple of last-minute tasks, and trying to figure out how I was going to fit 2 weeks of clothing into my suitcase (along with all the rather-thick books they're requiring me to bring) and still leave room for the manuals I'm going to get over the course of the training (oh do I wish I could vacuum pack those!). Finally on Saturday I got up, finished packing, and we left for the airport. After an uneventful ride on Frontier to Denver (probably the last airline ticket I'll be paying for in a long time), I had to go pick up my bags at the baggage claim, take them over to the Big Sky ticket counter and get my boarding pass (which is really more of a half-counter at the very end of the ticket counters, the Big Sky guys weren't even at the desk when I showed up, someone else had to go get them!), recheck them, go through security again (fortunately, it was a quiet day in Denver), get some dinner, and finally made it to my gate with about an hour to spare.

After waiting about 45 minutes, I found out from the guy at the gate counter (just in case you haven't figured it out yet, this is a small outfit, he was one of the same guys who'd been working at the ticket counter earlier) that the flight had run into some weather and was going to be delayed about 2 hours. Fortunately, after overhearing the two of us talking and figuring out that I was a new-hire FO, someone else who was waiting for the flight came over and introduced herself as Melanie, another one of the new hires. So we got to chat as we waited for our flight and compared notes about our prior training and what we know about Big Sky.

Anyway, the plane finally showed up (and it's even uglier than I expected!) and we climbed into a very-small cabin for the ride up to Billings (with a brief stop at Sheridan, WY along the way).

Ok, I think that's about it for now, all this to say that I'm safely here, tired (scratch that, more like exhausted), and hoping my roommate for the next 3 weeks doesn't show up until sometime tomorrow afternoon so I can sleep in a little (and that he's a relatively nice guy).

'night.