iCal - working offline? Impossible?

I was on a plane today, and so... working offline. I set up a new iCal calendar and chose iCloud for the location (as are all my calendars) - I spent 3 hours working, planning, scheduling meetings, project blocks, repeating events, alarms, contacts, etc. A LOT of work... got to the hotel at my conference expecting to get online with my MacBook Air and have this iCloud iCal sync the new calendar with iCloud and add this new iCal to all my Macs so I could then share it with Team Members..

POOF. It is gone! All my hours of work, VANISHED as though I never did it.

Can you not work offline in iCal?

Very upset and sad and frustrated and disappointed.

The strange thing is, the iCalendar I created IS still there, just none of the events that I made IN the calendar.

Go figure.

Any insights anyone??

Thanks much!