The alarm rings early in order to be ready for the 05:45 pickup time!
Here is the backstory in a nutshell. 5 months ago, whilst doing nails, drinking beers and listening to music, Tamara and I were lamenting on the fact we both loved P!NK’s music, but had not been to see her in concert. One hand in the UV lamp meant one hand was free to surf “The Google” and discover she was playing in Toronto Aug 2019…but I probably shouldn’t ditch the family vacation for that… Also she was playing in September in Rio de Janeiro but neither of us wanted to risk being kidnapped… So the calendar then landed on Nov 2 in Texas.
I asked Tamara if she wanted to go… And she said she probably couldn’t make that decision right then and there…. Well….. Oops!! I made the decision for her when I chose “buy tickets now”… Lol
I cackled, as is my fashion in times like this… And tipped back another Michelob.
The next day, fully aware of the fact I wanted Tamara to come because she also wanted to, not because she was pressured to, I found someone to take her place if she ended up deciding she didn’t want to come in the light of day.
Needless to say, she decided to join me on an Annie Adventure… And here we sit!
I was pretty excited about the trip, so this morning I started to walk down the street toward her house and stuck my thumb out as she pulled up in the truck. 8 minutes later we were at the airport and starting our body cavity searches making our way to the departure gate. We only have one in Medicine Hat, so… It wasn’t difficult to find.
30 minutes later we were on the plane… And wondering why the pilots were starting and stopping it over and over. Moments later our pilot came in the overhead saying we had some mechanical issues and they were going to try and fix it, or order us up a new plane. Trudging back down the ailse, the Air Marshall in me found an abandoned suspicious looking bag under the seat in the plane…
Turned out the be the flight attendants bag!
While waiting in the lounge again and sipping $2 mocha-choca-latte-yayas to pass the time, we stumbled across one of our favourite doctors escaping Medicine Hat to go golfing in Mexico…. If he could only make his connection in Cowtown in time!
An hour later, we were hurtling through the air at 400kmph westward, while our teeth chattered and we huddled together for warmth in the tin can with wings. We managed to ask to have the heat turned up, but the polar bears objected after reading about global warming… No warm plane for us.
Touching down 45 minutes later we nestled into a booth at the Belgian Beer Cafe for some steak and eggs and to watch the season 6 finale of Wentworth over brekkie. Tamara had the foresight to prep our layover entertainment by downloading season 7…our favourite show!
After filling up with Alberta beef, we grabbed a drink from Starbucks (where the barista failed to label our drinks accurately… Tkemra and those who shall be nameless… Instead of Tamara and Wonder Woman) and headed to the gate where we started to watch our show again while we had time to kill. While sitting there another traveller thought it would be great to push the envelope of personal space bubbles and practically sit on her lap. She was not impressed. Good thing she had her elbows sharpened recently.
Our next plane had a fire extinguisher seal issue which caused another hour delay… We got to people watch and were able to nickname the Nut man as well as the DVD man. A supa hot tea was in order… And we were informed that since McDonalds was the cup sponsor, we had to be aware the temperature of the tea would be higher than normal… I refreshed the memory of the McDonalds lawsuit selling hot coffee and reminded the flight attendant we could be burned if it was too hot. She didn’t see the humour.
While sitting next to Jean Luc Picard, I started to ask him philosophy questions. Suffice to say, he offered this piece of advice…. Don’t sweat things in life. Big or small. Nothing is worth stressing over. That led me to question why people stress over things ever…. What is the gain in worrying….? I’m still pondering this.
Hours later we arrived, got our smashed up car rental (yup… Damaged, flat tire indicator on, maintenance light glowing….) and learned Houston has no In and Out Burger… We would have to try Austin. 8 lanes of traffic greeted us leaving the airport and I felt like I was back in Toronto!
The highway should have been named the Hotel California Interstate….for it felt like we drove forever and could never leave ….
However, we did see some very interesting street names… Happy Hollow Road, Kickapoo Road, Squirrel Run and saw a hospital on Slaughter Road. Don’t think that gives many confidence…
We stopped to pee and buy some Powerball Lottery tickets and overwhelmed the clerk with our powerful accents. Lol
We drove by a bridge with homeless tents under it and now wonder what we will see when the sun is up.
We are at our very lovely Air B&B and look forward to our adventures tomorrow!