Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Dallas, here I am...

Well, after an early morning ferry ride on Sunday, I arrived to a clearly Canadian comrade at the terminal! We hopped in her car and headed for the border. Shortly thereafter, we were in Bellingham, Washington, ready to commence shopping!

Well, I am a champion shopper, if I do say so myself. My husband held back some cash, before I left, so there would be some left when I meet them back in Seattle in a week. Probably a good thing....2 days of shopping and now I must stop so I can eat while in Dallas.

On Monday, we went to the Chihuly glass exhibit in downtown Seattle. If I had a bucket list, I've crossed something off of it. What a stunning and amazing exhibit. I will forever be changed by the beauty that was displayed...I will have some pictures once I'm settled.

So at 10pm, we started our journey to the Seattle airport for our midnight flight to Houston, to connect to Dallas. For a moment, I thought I was moving through line ups at Disneyland....but no enjoyable Disney characters ever arrived, nor were there any fun rides at the end of the line up...just another line up!

It is funny, while self checking in we were offered $250 to take a later flight......wish we had done that, as we only paid $287 for our flight....and come to find out it was over booked and cancelled! Seems severe thunderstorms were rolling around Houston and our flight had been cancelled. We  were to fly out at midnight, but had been rebooked for 2am.

So, we found a seat and waited it out. Finally boarded our flight. I forgot I like to sit on the wing in a window seat. Barb, my travel companion, took the aisle seat. So, we had someone that would make our sandwich....who do you think it would be????? As people walked on the plane, the anticipation was tense. Lucky for us, it was a handsome young man in shorts and t-shirt with nice arms who completed our sandwich. I suggested to him we were pleased he made a cute addition to our sandwich! Too bad for him, he had wicked allergies and after popping several pills before take off....snotted the entire flight. Even while he slept..he snotted. There were several kids on the flight and they quietly existed until just before we arrived, a wee baby let her presence known.


Now I don't know about you, but after little sleep and a sitting/sleeping in a cramped seat for 3 hours...my feet were swollen and really sore. We had to dash off of the airplane; figure out what gate to run to, to get our connecting flight that was not what we had originally booked due to storms the night before. We got to our gate and immediately boarded. Well, we walked on the tarmac to board and HOLY HUMIDITY....we were blasted!

The plane was a little puddle jumper that would normally fly across the ocean between Victoria and Vancouver. I was seated next to a semi-cowboy. I call him a semi-cowboy because he did not have a cowboy hat nor boots.....but he did sport a crisp white western shirt and jeans. We finally took off after United had to unfuel the plane....yes, they removed fuel from our airplane. That freaked me out...would they remove too much? Seems they had been refueled the night before for a different flight that was cancelled. So after defueling, we still weren't moving. Seemed there now was not enough weight in the airplane....so a man or two were asked to move to the back and sand bags were added! Take off finally arrived.

Take $25 town carride  to car rental....wah wah wah...companion traveller had booked for Monday pick up, so no cars available today!!!!! Another $10 ride to hotel, then check in.

WOW, what a hotel!!! This place is insanely HUGE...MAMMOTH! There are wonderful Asian influences everywhere. Our room is gorgeous.....get set up. Then we move down to the atrium coffee shop for some coffee and food to start searching for reasonably priced car rentals. We find one and viola, it is booked and Barb is on her way to the airport to pick it up.

We will be joined by Jennifer at about 6:30pm and will pick up Jackie at 7:45pm. We have one more day before convention starts on Thursday. Shopping is in the plans for tomorrow. Oh and seems more severe thunderstorms for tonight.

So, we plan to have a relaxing day and see what tomorrow will bring!

2 comments:

  1. Excellent travel journal! I am living it all through yr eyes. Thanks, Nancy!

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  2. Oh dear, quite a travel adventure! I wish I could have gone . . . convention is so much fun!! Enjoy yourself now that you're finally there!!
    I'm so glad you got to see the Chihuly exhibit - I agree, life changing beautiful! Hugs!

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