I’m in Washington DC with Janelle and Julie! But getting here wasn’t simple. It never is when I travel as many of you know. I had an 8:15 flight from my small local airport. Big suitcase that weighs 20 lbs without clothes with 50 pound weight limit. Of course I’m 8 pounds over. To save $100 I have to pull items out and stuff into my purse and carry on. Now I’m sweating and my OCD is kicking in because nothing is in the right place.
Waiting for boarding, I look at my ticket and the seat says 1C. Now I know the night before I called and confirmed 4C. 1C means no under the seat storage for my carryons. I’m stressed but it’s only an hour flight. I sit down and a man comes with a ticket for 1C. Grrr. We compare tickets and turns out they gave me a duplicate of HIS ticket (note they let me on board with the wrong ticket!) so they moved me to 4C. Didn’t solve my seat problem because I’d already put my bags up high.
So just took my book, read on the hour flight and got into DC safely. Hurray! The three of us, Janelle, Julie and me, met up in the airport and took a cab back to the hotel. We arrive at 10 AM only to find out that they don’t have a room for us – the guests from the day before haven’t checked out – and they want to put us up in a neighboring hotel for the night. I beg. I plead. I cry (not really) … and the nice nice lady finds us a room – not on the Concierge Floor I’d booked way back in January – but in another tower. This is OK because I don’t have to leave this hotel – and she’ll give us Concierge access anyway.
Of all my travel debacles, this wasn’t the worst. But it did prompt Julie to say, next year SHE’S BOOKING THE ROOM.
As I always say, don’t travel with Carly!
****
Having a BLAST in DC. Saw some plotmonkey friends at the Literacy signing – Paula, Silver, Elisa … and forgive me if I’m forgetting anyone! It isn’t intentional. I only had one case of books (24) – sold out quickly – and then Janelle and I went to see BRUNO while Julie and Leslie saw Harry Potter. What a blast. And during the day we’ve been plotting, holed up in our room.
So that’s the update from DC. Wish you all were here!
Carly Phillips would like to take 100% credit for all her stories but the truth is, Carly’s strength is writing family, emotion, funky elderly people and animals. She couldn’t plot her way out of a paper bag, which is why she smartly found her plotmonkey pals early on in her writing career. Thanks to their support, Carly is now a NYT Bestselling author of 23 plus novels. Because writing doesn’t keep her busy enough, Carly is also a wife, a mother of one preteen and one teenage daughter, the primary care giver of her soft coated Wheaten terrier and an expert carpool mom.
Destiny
Dirty Little Secrets
Once Upon A Valentine
Through The Night
Subscribe to Posts 
Comment
I left a message on your Twitter page last night – I’d love to know what you guys thought of Bruno. My son went to see it a few days ago (he loved Borat, which I just couldn’t get into at all). He said when it was over he and his buddies just sat there, staring at the ground, trying to decide if it was any good or totally stunk. He said looking back on it there were parts that were funny but…I think he’s still trying to decide.
Glad eveyone arrived safely and hope you’re having a blast plotting!
Comment
Sounds like you trip wasn’t too bad…you know for you. I know y’all are having a blast in DC and hope all the plotting goes well.
I saw Harry Potter last night and really loved it. My oldest niece(turned 18 yesterday) and I spend almost an hour on the phone after I got out of the movies talking about it. I do wish they had put a couple of other things in the movie that I felt were important, but think they did a good job with it. Of course, the lady behind me must have never seen a book turned into a movie before, as she kept saying over and over “that wasn’t how she did it in the book”. She finally shutup after several of us turned around at once and looked at her.
Comment
Glad you guys are having fun. We’ve turned into the ‘don’t travel with us’ category. Our last trip started our horrible (we realized we got the wrong dates for middle boy’s camp, and he’ll miss it because we’ll be gone; our credit card was ‘compromised’ and the bank cancelled it without telling us until we were a day into our trip, leaving us without a credit card, boys having tantrums, etc). I am staying home next year.
Comment
Carly, Sorry to hear about your bad travel at the airport. But your not the only one who had to stuff things from her luggage to carry on. My friend Theresa and I were flying to Boston last month, on Air Tran, and poor Theresa was over the weight of 50 lbs by 10. Theresa used my carry on bag to stuff her shoes, and some of her clothes just to see the bag weigh 49.5. Oh its not fun when the airline messes up and gives you the wrong boarding pass. Been there.
It was a pleasure to meet you, Julie, and Leslie. Hope you guys are enjoying your fun plotting time in the room. Please tell us how you liked Bruno. I know Julie and Leslie will be talking about Harry.
Comment
Hope you all have a blast. Zoey is sound asleep on the cars cente:q
Center console and we are headed home for the week.
Next time the rwa does the east coast I’d love to go!
Comment
Cher
Comment
I think it’s a given that most of us will not ever be handed the opportunity
to “travel with Carly!” LOL! Thanks for sharing the account! BTW, I’m
currently reading Janelle’s Wild For Him.
Pat Cochran
Comment
Wow! Glad you are safe. Really wish I was there with you.
Comment
A – HA … love travel stories ! Sounds like your’s make the best memories :*&#!: Hope you have tons of fun on the rest of your trip !!!
Comment
Glad you are safely in DC Carly. It doesn’t sound like it was to terrible. The snafu at the hotel would have made me unhappy but it does seem like they made it okay. I hope the 4 of you are having a great time plotting.
Unlike many people I like to travel, even by plane! Yes, I have had a couple of not to great experiences but life is not perfect & things are going to happen. No sense in getting worked up about it and getting all stressed. That works well for me. Maybe that is why I don’t have a lot of problems.
Enjoy the rest of the time in DC. I’ll be looking forward to hearing about your adventures, the plotting and the movies.