Smithsonian... Not!

I was supposed to be in Washington DC today, giving a presentation at the Smithsonian for their Historical Fiction Writers' series, focussing on Pride of Carthage and Hannibal. I was chuffed to have been invited and really looking forward to it. Even made up a wee slide show to get a multi-media thing going. Didn't happen, though. Close. Close, but didn't happen.

The reason? Weather. From the start my flight out of Colorado Springs was canceled, and then when I did get on a plane the engines iced up while it was being de-iced. Pilot said this was weird, never happened to him before, but it made for a delay of about an hour and a half, which meant I missed my next flight. I then got booked on another flight out of Denver to Dulles. I got on the plane with the other hopeful passengers, only to told, sorry, we're not flying after all. Now the issue was the storm sweeping across the East Coast... I spent the night in Denver (about sixty miles from home), hoping to get on to a 5am flight the next morning. But, no, that didn't happen either. Dulles and National airports were both closed! So instead I came home. 28 hours away and nothing to show for it. On top of that, my luggage got lost...

Anyway, I'm still smiling. I think the Smithsonian folks want to reschedule for next month, and that's fine by me. I do want to thank the 100+ people that bought tickets for the evening. My travel difficulties aside, I do hope to be able to connect with you all in the near future.

Now, I've got some work to do...