The joys of travel...

When you live in South Dakota, winter vacations are a necessity to survival.  However, they are never a guarantee when the weather is considered.  Yesterday morning I boarded a little puddle-jumper airplane to travel to Denver where I would be connecting with friends and then flying to Arizona.  Apparently it was too cold overnight, because the plane was plugged in and being charged as we boarded.  We were assured it would only be a few minutes.  Fifteen minutes after backing from the airport, the plane sputtered and came to a standstill.  After another 20 minutes we finally took off.  Since I had only 52 minutes to make my connection I was not optimistic, but relieved that I had checked my luggage.  When the small plane landed, I had 24 minutes to make my connection.  A piece of cake--however, I deboarded the plane onto the ground, thus I had to run down hallways and around ground crew to get to the airport.  Out of breath, I arrived in the terminal to discover that my next flight was boarding 31 gates away.  It was a modern miracle that I made it in time to board...only to spend the next 20 minutes idling at the gate.  Gave me time to catch my breath and put myself back together.