highway to hell

I have time to kill time.  It’s one of the few blessings about business travel.  I can sit alone in a motel room and have nothing that needs doing (besides work….and I’m not doing that tonight).  I investigated getting an earlier flight out.  Long story, but I wouldn’t have made it home until well after midnight (if everything went as planned), so I returned the car and shuttled to a hotel adjacent to the airport.  I’m not so sure that was a great alternative – my flight in the morning is at 7AM.  The desk clerk here said I should catch the 4:00 AM shuttle because it can take 2 hours to get through security in the mornings at this airport.  Lovely.  

Guess who will be sleeping on the plane tomorrow?  Me (if at all possible).   Middle seat though, of course (on the first hop), which makes sleeping nearly impossible.  The second hop is on a tiny mosquito plane – 19 passengers packed as tightly as sardines in a can.  Both flights are full.  Ugh.      

In a different town, I would use this free time to go exploring to see what’s here.  This is Houston – gigantic metropolis – traffic is totally insane here, and even 25 miles away where my business was.  It’s like I never left the city.  Highways crisscross over each other in layers – it’s like basket weaving.  The worst part about being here is that there is always construction, and my GPS never seems sure where I am.  They just build highways beside highways here, so my GPS doesn’t really know which one I’m on.  It will tell me to exit but there is no exit.  It’s stressful driving here, which makes me very glad I don’t live here.

 

Erin had her last Christmas orchestra concert forever last Tuesday evening.  It was lovely, and it makes me a little bit sad to realize it’s another “last thing”.  It’s a year of last things for them both, which is wonderful and sad.  They are ready to move on to college – separating from us and separating from each other.  I think it’ll be hard for them to live 100 miles apart, but they will FaceTime and text.  Someone is going to be devastated when they move out – they are his world.  But still, thank the Lord they are ready, able, and eager to go.  This is exactly how it’s supposed to be.



Taken December 10, 2013, just before the concert