Seattle

There was half an hour left before our flight was scheduled to leave Burlington when I noticed the sky blackening. The giant windows of the terminal revealed dark clouds sinking lower over the airport. It resembled a classic midwest storm where the sun disappears seemingly without notice and is replaced with thunder and lightning.

Lightning grew from tiny bolts in the distance to tree-sized smears directly in front of us.  Storms with this much power usually don't last long. That was the good news. The bad news: due to the excessive lightning, the fuel truck could not get out to top off our plane. As a result, we took off half an hour late. This would make things tight in Philadelphia where we only had a 45-minute layover.

In Philly, Beckie and I raced over to our connecting terminal and arrived with only 10 minutes to spare before the scheduled take-off. However, due to inclement weather elsewhere in the country, our second leg was delayed an hour and a half.

After sitting for some time with night and fatigue setting in, we boarded the plane and shoved off. At about 30,000 feet, we watched as lightning lit up the clouds to our south hinting at what other planes must be dealing with. It was no wonder our plane was delayed.

On the ground in Vegas, Beckie and I raced over to our connecting terminal and arrived - once again - with only 10 minutes to spare before the scheduled take-off. However, due to the flight crew being somewhere else in the country, our third and final leg was delayed an hour and a half.

We landed in Seattle at 3:30AM, an hour after we were supposed to land. To our bodies, it was 6:30AM. It would be another hour plus before being nestled into our hotel bed in an attempt to clear the fog from our weary heads. Sleep came fast.