Now that our local airport has only three flights per day, the odds of connecting with flights out of Seattle are pitifully small. The first flight at 6am is my best shot, but it arrives too early to connect with West Coast flights... and too late to connect with East Coast flights. Either way, it means anywhere from 3 to 5 hours of waiting, which is longer than it takes to drive to Seattle.

Even worse is the return trip. There's a 4:25pm, which is too too late for West Coast returns, and too early for East Coast returns (and since the next/last flight isn't until 11:10pm, there you are with 3 to 5 hours of waiting... again). Since the absolute last thing I want to do when I'm trying to get home is spend hours and hours waiting for my connection at SeaTac, this is not really an option (though I did just that on my recent return from San Francisco).

And so I've been driving over the mountains instead of flying. When there's no snow on the ground, it's just so much easier.

Except when there's rock blasting.

Which was happening today at 6:30pm.

Which meant leaving after work at 5:00pm would have meant sitting on Snoqualmie Pass for two hours while construction crews chip away at a mountain. And so I left work early.

The plan was to use this extra time to catch up on some sleep, because heaven only knows I need some of that.

Except the hotel room above me was blasting the television at full volume and stomping around so hard that the ceiling was shaking... and the hotel room next to mine was having some kind of noisy party until 1:00am.

Which is perfect, considering it's now 1:30am and I'm wide awake... with an alarm set for 3:30am.

If I'm lucky, this means I'll get two hours of sleep.

But I think we all know I'm never that lucky.