hushed gray: the Kevin chronicles

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Memorial Day Weekend Trip, part 2
(If you missed Memorial Day Weekend Trip, you may wish to read it first before continuing with this entry.)

So, let's see, where were we...ah yes. Saturday morning we got up bright and early and headed off to Sabbath services in San Antonio, which is apparently a very happy place to attend church. Met a bunch of people, may actually remember a few names and a few faces. After services there was a big crowd of folks that went to lunch. At least I was seated next to Sarah and across from Sarah's grandmother and 9-year-old Ty. Good times.

Photo of Sarah and Me

Once lunch concluded, Sarah and I headed to Matt and Sara's (a young couple in the San Antonio congregation) house to visit for a while, after which we all went to get ice cream and then go bowling. The girls suggested girls vs. guys, which I never like because it seems like I'm always on the losing team. Someone made the comment that I was the only common factor in all of those situations! ;-). We had fun, though. I think the high score of the evening was a 111. We took a self-portrait afterward (good thing I have long arms).

Photo of Sara, Matt, Me, and Sarah

It was pretty late when Sarah and I got back to the house; we sat up talking for a little bit but not long. On Sunday we got up somewhat early (for a Sunday, at least) and headed off to the grocery store to buy ingredients for pecan pie. While we were in Floresville proper, we also went to see Floresville's giant peanut. Now things are supposed to be bigger in Texas, but c'mon...if you've ever seen the giant peanut off I-75 near Ashburn in South Georgia, you know how a giant peanut's supposed to look!

Photo of Sarah and the Giant Peanut

The pecan pie making was a success, though we may not have cooked it long enough--it was more pecan cobbler than pecan pie in that it had to be scooped out of the pan. Was pretty tasty, though, so I can't complain. We also gave bike riding a try but quickly tired due to the heat. And it was hot in Texas Memorial Day weekend, which I shall reference again later on.

Also on Sunday we watched "Cars" (which I'd seen in the theater, a rare occurence for me), but Sarah had not seen. Also watched old home videos, which I greatly enjoyed.

Monday got off a pleasantly relaxed start. Mr. T fixed breakfast tacos. Apparently that's the big thing in Texas, having tacos for breakfast, but instead of loading them down with ground beef and sour cream and guacamole and such the contents are eggs and potatoes and so forth. Tasty.

As it approached noon we went to a miniature golf place on the way in to San Antonio. It was once again very hot; we took a water break after the first nine holes. Sarah's parents were on one team, Sarah and me on the other, and her parents won. After the game we drove on into San Antonio and got a bite to eat before heading to the airport, where we said our goodbyes and I went to wait on my flight to Dallas, where I was to connect to my flight to Jacksonville.

Shortly before we landed in Dallas, one of the flight attendants came on the intercom and was giving out connecting gate information, and said we'd be arriving at Terminal such and such. It turned out we arrived at a terminal on the opposite side of the airport. Apparently someone on the ground decided they needed our aircraft for a flight to El Paso that was supposed to leave 10 minutes before we landed. However, apparently whoever made the decision to have us pull up to that particular terminal didn't tell the ground crew--or the ground crew had to hot foot it across the complex, because we ended up just having to sit a few dozen yards from the terminal for 15 minutes or so waiting for the ground crew to arrive and pull us on up.

At that point I was thinking, okay, I'm going to have to boogie to get to the other terminal, but I should be okay. So I get off the plane and see my flight to Jacksonville has been pushed back by about 10 minutes. So I'm like, okay, that's cool. So I go to get a snack. And when I come back, I see my flight to Jacksonville has been pushed back another 10 minutes.

Keep in mind my flight back to Jacksonville wasn't supposed to arrive in Jacksonville until well after midnight even if it had left Dallas on time. We ultimately got back before 12:30 a.m., though so it wasn't too bad.

Once they finally got a plane ready for us and everybody boarded, we were taxiing toward the runway. The lead flight attendant--a black lady probably in her 50's or 60's--came on the intercom and was giving the standard information about flight speed and how high we'd be flying at and all of that, and she ended with the weather conditions..."and in Jacksonville it's partly cloudy and 67 degrees, hallelujah!" That got a nice chuckle out of us passengers. I'm guessing she must have been stuck in Texas all weekend, because once again, it was hot.

The flight back was uneventful, but I was seated on the left side of the aircraft and got treated to a nice lightning show far to our north. I don't know how far to our north, but we were flying under clear skies, so it had to be a long way off. I tried taking some video with my camera, but of course the lightning flashes don't show up as more than brief blips of light so I won't bother posting that here.

It was I guess about 1:30 a.m. before I finally got back to my apartment, and then I had to be at work at 8 that morning. But I think I made the most of the time I had off work, and I had a great time and enjoyed my visit. And I believe that wraps up the story of the Texas trip.

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