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Back home...
Dec. 17th, 2005 08:17 pmIt turns out the prediction in my last post - about being asleep by 4 am this morning - was right, but not by much. There was too much stuff to do yesterday morning to get ready to leave after my shift, and by the time I got it all done, it was time to go meet Natalie for lunch.
It took very nearly an hour to drive from Clear Lake to the Westheimer area around I-610, where I met Natalie outside her apartment and we went to a place called Skewers for lunch. The food was good, plentiful, and a little on the expensive side - at least for my wallet, which wasn't impacted as Natalie picked up the tab. She suggested I rest for an hour or so at her place before I left for the airport, and it was a good thing I did.
I set the alarm for 2:45 pm, "snoozed" for another 10 minutes, and then hit the road. The traffic was terrible; what was normally a 30 minute drive took me a little over an hour, but I got to the airport in plenty of time to give back the car, check in, and get through security.
The flight to Phoenix was boring, which is generally a plus during a plane ride, but I couldn't get comfortable in my seat (the back would not recline as I was sitting against a bulkhead), so I didn't get any sleep. And although I felt tired during my 2-1/2 layover in Phoenix (which turned into a 4-1/2 hour layover due to an aircraft delay), I dared not sit down and start to doze, for fear I'd just fall asleep and miss my flight.
Naturally, as soon as I got aboard the plane for Durango, I didn't feel like sleeping any more, and didn't sleep for the entire flight, or for the drive all the way to Pagosa. Although my seat did not have a window conveniently placed above my arm rest, I did get a chance to look outside during the flight by reclining my seat and looking back past my shoulder. The scattered individual lights on the moon-illuminated ground were just so very... right, and occasionally, I'd see a splash of lights in the distance and try to figure out what town it was. I'm sure I got most of them wrong, but I "nailed" the identification of Farmington, New Mexico, by the big mall that sits across from a Sam's Club and Wal-Mart.
Galina, who'd been working all day in the store, was waiting for me when the luggage was finally delivered (a 35 minute wait after a 60 minute flight). We took off for home and met very little traffic along the way. Galina and I pulled into our driveway at a little after 2 am, and I was asleep shortly thereafter.
Everyone let me sleep in this morning, which was good and, come to think of it, necessary. I had gotten up around 7:30 am and felt really not up to meeting the day, so I went back to bed. Eventually, I got up, took a shower, and started heading for the store around 9:30 on my bike. I met Drew coming to get me in his Honda a hundred yards or so down Carino, and rather than do the smart thing and simply walk the bike back up to house, we tried the old one-hand-on-the-moving-car trick, going really slowly, but with less than stellar and fairly painful results that should have no long-term consequences. It seems so easy when you're a teen, but it's definitely not recommended for anyone, especially folks like me who are not quite in their physical prime.
I am told we have the Huntür "duty" tomorrow. I can't wait.
Cheers...
It took very nearly an hour to drive from Clear Lake to the Westheimer area around I-610, where I met Natalie outside her apartment and we went to a place called Skewers for lunch. The food was good, plentiful, and a little on the expensive side - at least for my wallet, which wasn't impacted as Natalie picked up the tab. She suggested I rest for an hour or so at her place before I left for the airport, and it was a good thing I did.
I set the alarm for 2:45 pm, "snoozed" for another 10 minutes, and then hit the road. The traffic was terrible; what was normally a 30 minute drive took me a little over an hour, but I got to the airport in plenty of time to give back the car, check in, and get through security.
The flight to Phoenix was boring, which is generally a plus during a plane ride, but I couldn't get comfortable in my seat (the back would not recline as I was sitting against a bulkhead), so I didn't get any sleep. And although I felt tired during my 2-1/2 layover in Phoenix (which turned into a 4-1/2 hour layover due to an aircraft delay), I dared not sit down and start to doze, for fear I'd just fall asleep and miss my flight.
Naturally, as soon as I got aboard the plane for Durango, I didn't feel like sleeping any more, and didn't sleep for the entire flight, or for the drive all the way to Pagosa. Although my seat did not have a window conveniently placed above my arm rest, I did get a chance to look outside during the flight by reclining my seat and looking back past my shoulder. The scattered individual lights on the moon-illuminated ground were just so very... right, and occasionally, I'd see a splash of lights in the distance and try to figure out what town it was. I'm sure I got most of them wrong, but I "nailed" the identification of Farmington, New Mexico, by the big mall that sits across from a Sam's Club and Wal-Mart.
Galina, who'd been working all day in the store, was waiting for me when the luggage was finally delivered (a 35 minute wait after a 60 minute flight). We took off for home and met very little traffic along the way. Galina and I pulled into our driveway at a little after 2 am, and I was asleep shortly thereafter.
Everyone let me sleep in this morning, which was good and, come to think of it, necessary. I had gotten up around 7:30 am and felt really not up to meeting the day, so I went back to bed. Eventually, I got up, took a shower, and started heading for the store around 9:30 on my bike. I met Drew coming to get me in his Honda a hundred yards or so down Carino, and rather than do the smart thing and simply walk the bike back up to house, we tried the old one-hand-on-the-moving-car trick, going really slowly, but with less than stellar and fairly painful results that should have no long-term consequences. It seems so easy when you're a teen, but it's definitely not recommended for anyone, especially folks like me who are not quite in their physical prime.
I am told we have the Huntür "duty" tomorrow. I can't wait.
Cheers...
