I spent much of the time leading up to BlogHer12 planning, meticulously, what to bring.  I made a trip to Trader Joe’s just to pick up snacks, raided Target’s glitter supplies, and packed 6 liters of water.  Apparently I thought NYC doesn’t know how to bottle water and no one would have enough glitter.  Much of my time was too jam packed with nervous energy or food samples to want for extra food. Also, seven pairs of shoes = silly talk.

Alas, I lugged my much too heavy bags to the train station, narrowly missing my train and almost spawning anxiety attack 1 of 500.  Not having time to stop and grab a trashy celeb ‘zine I played on my phone the whole 4 hour ride.  I’ve heard of worse forms of entertainment.

And it was a darn good thing my eyes were trained on rotating between Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, because at one point I saw, “Anyone getting into Penn Station around 2p?” on the Blogher12 tweet-feed.  I piped up immediately, because if that morning’s departure from the train station was any indication, I was going to need emotional/mental/physical help getting all this necessary stuff into a taxi.

AND THEN THE TRAIN JUST STOPPED MOVING (all caps necessary).

Sure, trains stop moving all the time – like when they let people on and off said train.  However we were almost at a station, and unless people got discount tickets, there was no jumping off the cars and track walking.  Shortly after the first announcement came about technical difficulties.  Then an announcement followed declaring our engine dead.   In about an hour a new engine would arrive and be installed.

I wrote back to the lovely @SgtMsWife stating my train broke.

However, her response brought me hope: “Our NJ transit train is pulling up next to an Amtrak.”

Imagine how awesome I looked when I broke the news to my car of the train.

Not only did I actually have a cab-buddy, but I was getting on her train! It seemed too good to be true, which it was, when they sat me in the corner reserved for disabled riders and piled my luggage around me.

This seems like a good time to wrap things up, right? Wrong.  Once we got to the station and I ran over 1 person’s toe, allowed my giant bag to spill over onto a native New Yorker (no words, just eye rolling. massive eye roll), and finally get into a cab, we went to the wrong Hilton.  Jenn was so confident in her recital of the hotel address I smiled and nodded and focused on not falling over my bags, again.  Thank goodness for the lovely bellhop at the wrong Hilton, telling us about the other 2 incorrect arrivals.  When we asked him about the bloggers he recited it back to us as “blogages?” or something and we turned right around.  Our cabbie was pleased for the extra $10 and drove us to the correct location.

We made it.  We arrived at the correct Hilton and we found our roommates. It was time to experience BlogHer and all its “glory.”

Special thanks to whomever it was that reminded me the actual trip up to NYC was not a disaster, but rather blog fodder.  Excellent call, my dear.