Sunday morning, another nifty breakfast and more books than I could shake a stick at are given away. I gotta mention that every time we sat down at a table for a meal, the centerpieces alone were worthy of an hour's discussion (hey, when you have Halloween on the horizon, you never know what you'll find next to your upside-down coffee cup! Fake vampire teeth, anyone?)
As I had a plane to catch in NJ, I had to forego the last panel discussions, and high-tailed it back to the airport, dropped off my rental car, and then made my way to the ticket counter to check my bags. Got into the security line... uhh... sort of. The elevator going UPSTAIRS to the security line had a line! My flight was due to start boarding in 45 min., so I cheated. I took the elevator up to the second floor, but then discovered there were TWO separate areas where security was checking bags. I was escorted to one area, which immediately blossomed into a nice, noisy swarm of people, whom security divided into TWO MORE lines. BOTH lines looped around the airport terminal, around large marble columns, past bathrooms, through tiny corridors, and finally to the velvet rope, where security AGAIN divided us up (for reasons I have yet to fathom.) Suffice it to say, I missed my flight, but I did get a helluva lot of my in-flight book read while waiting.
Okay. Over to Customer Service where I discovered there's another flight out in 3 hrs. I'm put on stand-by, along with the 33 other people who missed the same flight back to Houston. One lady is going beserk because her dog was on the first flight, and who'll take care of Mimi when it lands?
I was #4 on the stand-by list. The next flight out took 5 of us. I had the MIDDLE seat but I didn't care. I was heading home, and I slept most of the way, anyway.
I felt somewhat refreshed when we landed. I found my luggage without too much trouble, considering the Houston Bush airport is under major construction in the baggage pickup area. Took the shuttle to the parking lot where I'd stashed my little life-saving car, and started for home. Traffic was sparse, and the flow was easy. I stopped once to refuel the car and me, and made it back home safe and sound.
By the way, there's still bits of grass stuck in the undercarriage of my car.
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