Travelavelavelavel

The trip started out very well. Alex was able to come in to the terminal (for the first time?) and see me off, due to the fact that she was on a later flight.

DC – Houston: Fine. We arrived about 15 min. late, because Houston had had some nasty weather. There was much confusion in the airport.

Houston – McAllen: Not so good. First, the flight was delayed by an hour. Then, we just sat on the tarmac for nearly another hour. Once in the air, we were informed that McAllen had lots of storms, now, so we would be circling for a while.

The circling was a bit harrowing at times. Crazy turbulence, totally blind in cloud cover. Then the clouds lifted and we saw some beautiful lightning displays. That was nice. The captain told us we might have to go to Laredo, because we were low on fuel. Ick. Laredo.

Finally, he just landed. We all clapped.

Then, just to make matters silly, the luggage conveyor belt broke. You know that belt that brings your luggage up from the bowels of the airport? The place where it transfers your bags to the spinning armadillo-like metal luggage distribution joyride? Right in that spot, someone’s garment bag popped open and jammed so hard that three tech guys could not pull it out. The bag claim area smelled like a burned-out vacuum belt.

So, I got to see how it felt to pick up my own luggage off the cool little train thingy, which they nicely pulled up outside the terminal, in the passenger pick-up area.

Finally, for some reason, I decided to come home through town, which should be faster than the freeway, at 10:30 on a Sunday night. But, of course, McAllen being McAllen, the main arteries have the lights timed just right, so you stop for every. single. one. Yes, out of about 20 lights, I made it through 2 without stopping for pretty much the full cycle. Stupid little side streets that lead nowhere except to an abandoned shopping center. Every light.

Now I’m home. 3.5 hours late, which doesn’t seem too bad, considering how fervently I repented while we were bouncing around in thunderheads over McAllen.