Traveling through the February Fury

I will admit I am a bit of a Weather Channel addict. I love watching how excited the meteorologists get when the weather is going to be bad. So I flew from Erie, PA to Pheonix, AZ on Tuesday, the day the aptly named (by the Weather Channel) February Fury of snow and ice and wind hit the midwest and northeast area of the US. And of course, my flight wasn't until the afternoon. I seriously considered trying to back out of this business trip but my boss was meeting me there (he's from Omaha, NE) and bringing me my nifty new work toy that I'm typing on right now... a brand new Macintosh laptop with lots of training development toys on it. Motivation enough for me.
So I glued myself to the weather channel while finishing my packing, and drove to work. By the time I left work the snow had begun. When I got to the airport, it was snowing sideways and lots of flights to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, DC, Balitimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland were all cancelled. Lucky me, I was connecting in Detroit and the Detroit flights were only delayed. Second bit of luck, I had a long layover in Detroit so the chances of me getting to Phoenix were looking pretty good. The puddle jumper (i.e. really little plane with propellors) took off 1.5 hours late and made it to Detroit with a minimum of bouncing. I found out the next day that we were the last flight out of Erie before the airport was shut down due to low visibility. I have a mental image of my pilot radioing the tower saying, "I can't see Sh*t!"
Detroit was getting less snow but it was really, really windy. Lucky me, my plane boarded on time and I thought I'd actually get to Phoenix on time......
1.5 hours on the jetway just sitting, getting hot, listening to the small child behind me screech every few minutes because she didn't want to settle down and go to sleep and she wanted to be in Daddy's lap. Oh joy, it's a 4 hour flight to begin with and now we are sitting on the jetway indefinately.
The pilot finally explained that the nozzle they connect a water hose to for fillling the water tanks (so those lovely sinks in the spacious bathrooms work) was frozen and they were considering putting a bunch of wet naps in the bathrooms instead just so we could get going. Instead they oppened the back door (3 rows behind me) letting in a blast of artic, yet fresh, air and guys in orange vests were on and off the plane trying to fix things. Eventually everything was working and we were off into the wild yonder. But wait, we need to deice. Another 30 minutes on the ground. All I want is my MP3 player cranked on high in my ears playing my 106 songs in alphabetical order by artist (Avril Lavigne, Nickleback, etc) so I can't hear the screeching kid but you can't use electronic devices until the plan is above 10,000 feet.
Needless to say, I did make it to Phoenix, out of the Fury and into the 65 degree weather. Now it's sunny today, it actually rained a bit yesterday. I was very late getting in and didn't even get to bed until 230 mst (430 to my east coast brain). But at least I was safe and I don't have to snow shovel and best of all...
I got a Ford Mustang, bright yellow and the car rental. I'm went with National and I'm and Emerald Aisle person. They put the mustang there as a complimentary upgrade. It's a fast, fun car. I really, really, really want to floor it on the interstate but I've been good....so far at least.
Back to the artic tundra tomorrow but for at least today, it's sunny, 65 degrees and I have a Mustang and a new computer....