Recently, we took a short trip to Texas for my moms wedding. Our friend Justin graciously offered to fly us there and back using his buddy passes and it would cost us nothing. Awesome, right? So we packed our things, called a cab and we were at the airport by 4:30 Thursday morning to catch the 6am flight to Dallas.
Except the flight was booked and we were flying stand by. Not just stand by, but the lowest tier because we weren’t employees, relatives or paying customers. So we waited. Three flights, seven hours and being told our best chance was to come back tomorrow had us feeling defeated. Our plan to get in at four, and have dinner with both sides of our families turned into spending another night in Portland. To say I was sad was an understatement but we tried to be hopeful about the next day.
Friday morning, 4:30am, back at the airport and shocker… The flights are all booked. After talking with the gate agent we decided it would be best to fly to Chicago and try to catch a flight to Houston or worst case scenario, a flight from Chicago to Arkansas and Arkansas to Houston.
So at 6:50 we board a flight to Chicago hopeful for better luck flying out of a bigger airport. We even got to see Frozen on the plane and I thought it was pretty cute. Once we land, we checked a flight to Houston and of course it’s all booked. The Arkansas one looked pretty open so we decide its our best bet and at 1:30 we were on our way.
When we landed there were two Houston flights and they were both pretty full with a lot of stand bys. We ended up in a pretty small airport so those two were really our only options. When the first one boarded there was around 20 stand bys which didn’t get on and got rolled over to the second flight. That put us as 22 and 23 on the list.
So after a day of failures and a day of flying to nowhere we needed to be, we were defeated. Seriously. I never felt so low. it was my moms wedding and I had no idea how I was going to get there.
After going through our list of options we went with the only thing that would definitely get us to Texas that night- renting a car and driving six hours to our destination.
Yep, after two failed flights and being stuck in Arkansas we rented a car and started driving. Thankfully I have a husband who, after a monster, is totally cool with driving. And six hours later, a little past midnight we were pulling up at our hotel for the night.
My mom, Sara and her boyfriend miles were staying with us as well. Being able to hug them the second I got out of the car made the whole trip worth it. Plus I was so damn ready for that day to be over with.
Our hotel was… Interesting. I’ll spare you the disgusting details and mention that the bed was a lot more comfortable then I thought. The next day was crazy busy trying to get everything ready for the wedding.
Other than a ton of rain, the wedding was really really beautiful. I was so glad we were able to make it in time!
That night we headed to Alex’s parents to spend the night with them. It was so awesome to be able to pull off seeing both sets of families in the three days we were there.
Going back to Texas for the first time since we moved was so surreal. We drove by our old apartment, our old jobs, the old stores we would shop at. It felt so weird that everything was exactly where we left it and the only thing that changed was us. It even felt like I could walk into our old apartment and everything would be there, exactly as we left it.
Walking into Alex’s parents and my moms house felt really good though. It was so.. familiar. Definitely one of my favorite feelings. I knew walking through Alex’s parents door they would be there, sitting on their gold chairs(that sounds so fancy, doesn’t it?) exactly where they were when we left and exactly where I knew I would find them.
Getting back to Portland was a lot easier than getting out and we were so thankful for that. We got home, went to Lucky Lab, picked up Oscar and then slept for about 16 hours. Living the life, I tell ya.
I never know how to end these things, so here’s a picture of our beer from that afternoon. The end!
ohmandajean 