Travel Trauma

Why can't it ever be smooth? After our disasterous flight fiascos to and from Las Vegas in December, I thought we were due some good kharma. Apparently not.

Coming back from the Caymans... Ok, first of all you're leaving the Caymans, which is traumatic enough. But then to have to wake up at 4:45 a.m. to catch an early flight and then enduring a 5 hour layover in Miami - now that's just cruel. But it didn't stop there. Oh no. About half an hour before we were scheduled to board our plane, Miami decides to give us a show with lightning and thunder and buckets of rain. Thanks but that added on an additional 2.5 hours to our layover - torture! And to make matters worse, the AA people kept taunting us with promises and then pushing back the ETA of our plane at the last minute. So fine. We're off and back to Houston, where my wonderful friend Lillian picked us up from the airport and took us to a fab little restaurant in Montrose. We are rejuvenated. We are young and fresh again. Hurrah. We're off to Austin.

Nope. Dead car battery. Luckily Lillian has the uber-deluxe AAA membership so after our attempts at jumping the car fail, she calls a tow truck to come to the rescue. An hour and a half later, rescue comes our way. He jumped the car, but we needed gas so we ask him to follow us to the gas station in case we need another jump. We do. But this time, it doesn't work. The battery is completely dead and gone to heaven. Our options, 1) tow the car to a garage where we'll get it fixed first thing in the morning or 2) get a tow all the way back to Austin (fantastic perk of the deluxe AAA membership - up to a 200 mile tow!). So we wait for yet another tow truck, this one with a flat-bed and hope that he can take us home. Mass confusion ensues. The tow truck needs to get permission to leave his district so he takes off with the car, promising to call us soon with the verdict. He finally does about a half hour later and tells us the good news. He can take us, but we'll have to all squish into his truck cab and it'll be another hour before he comes to pick us up. What time table do these people work from?

So for the second time this trip, we keep Lillian up until the wee small hours of the morning, depriving her of her precious little sleep and privacy. (Although I have to take full credit for the first time. Lillian is my very best friend from high school so we had about 12 years to catch up on.) The guy finally comes to collect us and I see why he's taken so long. He's stopped to pick up his little lady friend to make the trip with us. We somehow talk him into letting us ride in the car, which is loaded onto the flat bed, so we can try to catch some zzz's on the way. I suspect this is most probably illegal as he agrees if we promise to keep the seats reclined and our heads out of sight. Fine by us. If you've never had the pleasure of riding in a car riding on a truck, I can't say that I recommend the experience, especially if you're hoping for some rest. Its a very bumpy and noisy ride. Every time we turned, I got the sensation that the car was going to be jolted off of the bed and onto the ground below with us being crushed under it. Luckily, we made it back in one piece just in time to wake up the neighbors at 5:30 in the morning with the sounds of freeing our car back onto familiar territory. By the time we pushed the car into the garage, unloaded and said hi to the kitties, it was 6:30 a.m. Another 26 hour day of travelling.

But we're back. And I can comfort myself in the knowledge that we only have 2 weeks of work until we're off to Portugal. Let's hope that trip is nice and boring.