What is strange to me is that people tend to go to places where friends or relatives live. For me, the only exception to this might have always been going to the Hawaiian Islands. And even then my first wife and her boyfriend had lived in Hilo, Hawaii before we went there with my New born son in August of 1974.
So, the main reason that we flew yesterday to Austin, Texas is that our youngest daughter moved there last fall. Of course, it's also true that the year before she was living in Berlin, Germany too but we didn't visit her there because that's a long way to go for me now at age 76.
Even going to Austin wasn't that easy for me because my wife booked a flight to San Diego (which seems to be one of the hubs for going to Austin by the way and so I had to get up yesterday morning at 4 am which also is a lot for me this age especially because I only slept an hour or two that night. So, we got up at 4 AM and a friend drove us to the airport so we wouldn't have to pay long term parking fees. So, around 6 am we first flew to San Diego from the San Francisco area and arrived there around 7 am.
However, then we had to wait from about 7 am until 11 am for a 2nd flight which took us to Austin Texas. While we were waiting in San Diego they changed Gates on us without us being able to realize that they had changed Gates.
So, a nice Gentleman who works for the airlines looked up where our flights new gate was going to be. Then we had to walk about 6 blocks to find the right gate but luckily we magicaly arrived just in time to be the first persons to get on the plane somehow. So, for me, at least staying awake from 7 am until 11 am when we flew to Austin was the hardest part of the trip. By the time we boarded our Austin Flight we had seats near the front bulkhead of the plane which was nice because no one could put their seat back and hurt us because I'm almost 6 foot 5 inches tall. So, this was nice.
Since I had a window seat I was looking down on Desert mostly and I think we flew over Tucson, Arizona on our route to Austin, Texas to see my youngest daughter. Finally we landed in Austin only to find out that the weather in the rest of the state east of Austin had been bad and all planes that couldn't land at Dallas or other airports had been rerouted to Austin Texas for Safety. So, when we arrived the airport looked like a parking lot for Jets and they had planes stacked everywhere across the runways wherever they could.
Then we had to get into a line of planes that didn't have gates to go to because they been diverted from other Airports. Then the pilot gets on the line and says, "We are one of the only planes here with an actual Gate to go to for us BUT we have a plane in front of us that doesn't have a gate in this plane parking jam here at the Airport. Well, about an hour later after sitting on the tarmac in our plane someone finally moves some of the other planes so we can go to our gate. I have no idea how long other airliners waited to unload or whatever they did because of the weather problems east of Austin, Texas.
The sky looked ominous to me from Thunder storms also when we rented our car. However, I have never lived around tornadoes or large hail either. So, my experience didn't mean much in this kind of situation just because of my basic lack of experience around Tornadoes and large hail that will break the windows out of cars and trucks and sometimes worse than that. Because I know softball size hail had been coming down in Texas and east of Texas in the last week or so. And this isn't something you would survive if you were out in it and not under shelter or under a tree or something to protect from a concussion or worse.
So, finally we get to our gate and we unloaded the plane and got our luggage and then rented a car. However, it was pretty hot outside and felt like a little hotter than the humid Hawaii weather we often see on Maui or Kauai or on the Big island of Hawaii.
I also noticed at one point how they had to slope the cement as I was walking towards the car rental area which meant they really must get heavy rain here when you have to sideways slope a wide Cement area sideways for passengers to walk over. It was sprinkling a little by the time we rented our car also. But, not heavy just a few drops on and off as we drove out of the Car Rental Yard at the Austin Airport.
However, then you have to navigate toll roads as there aren't really freeways here like in California. So, just driving to our hotel we likely racked up 5 dollars in tolls (which also was nice because toll roads generally don't have that much traffic. So, we didn't see any traffic much getting to our hotel.
Then after she got off work our daughter took us to a nice Thai restaurant which is likely the best tasting Thai Food I had ever eaten before so this was a real treat to see our daughter and have an amazing meal (even though my wife and I were exhausted at our age from the trip and lack of Sleep.
So, I guess all's well that ends well.
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