Road trip!

Due to a slow-moving storm that stretched from Mexico to Kansas last Thursday night, I was potentially stranded in Houston (on my way to San Angelo). Generally, that wouldn't have been so big a problem, except Continental didn't cancel the flight until midnight (it was supposed to take off at 9:25 p.m.) and I had such a debacle with American two weeks before that I didn't want to deal with another extended delay/layover.

I wound up in an SUV with five strangers -- one of whom, the car's owner, needed to be in San Angelo at 7 a.m. We left on our 400 mile trip a little before 12:30.

It was definately surreal. Initially, everyone who wasn't sleeping was hesitant to talk much, but as the trip rolled on, and we realized that we likely would never see each other gain, conversation started flowing more freely. I learned to never get involved in a land war (in Asia or elsewhere), the Japanese love Blue Bell ice cream, we're training Iraqis who can't read (English or Iraqi) how to maintain airplanes, many pawnshops are actually managed as chains by a larger company, and lots of other strange facts I'd probably never have known.

We got to San Angelo around 6:30. I got home around 6:45. I said good morning/have a nice day at work to Hannah around 6:50. And I was sitting at our desk working on my laptop by 7:00. I then slept 10 hours that night and went to bed at 8:30 on Saturday.

The trip back wasn't nearly as dramatic. Although I did watch Walk the Line, so there was drama involved.