The Long Journey Home

So, finally, here I am, and it's update time!! (I know this is a long entry, but it''s a funny story, if you want to read it!)

As most of you know, I went home to Louisiana for the Christmas holidays, and I had an absolutely FABULOUS time!!!! When I finally got there. Which was not an easy task.

I arrived in Houston a little bit early (what a shocker, right?), and so I was sitting at the gate, waiting for my flight to Alexandria, which was supposed to leave in 5 minutes, when they announced something terrible: my flight was being canceled due to weather. What weather, I wondered? Sure, it was rainy and a little bit foggy, but I had numerous times taken off in weather far worse than that.

Anyhow, so they put me on the next flight out, and while I was very tired and jet lagged, I couldn't complain - I was just excited to be going home. And then they announced that my next flight was canceled because they had no flight attendants. And the flight after that was full, so I got them to put me on it on standby and to confirm me on a seat on the flight after that. Fine, no problem.

I didn't make the standby. The flight took off. They somehow canceled my next reservation, but because the flight attendant was nice, she managed to get me on the flight. After sitting in the runway for about half an hour, they announced that there was too much fog in Alexandria, and the flight was canceled. We got out of the plane to discover that the flight after that, the last flight of the day, was also canceled.

By this point in time, it was about 3 in the morning in France, I hadn't slept at all on the plane, they weren't going to be paying for a hotel (since the flights had been canceled for weather), and really, I was just ready to get home. So, I decided to cancel the last leg of my flight and drive.

My mom was not happy. It was rainy and foggy, she said (for the record, this was an understatement - it was so foggy that you couldn't see a foot in front of you and the rains were hurricane torrential), and I was jet-lagged and tired (also an understatement). Still, she was arranging a car for me, when a very nice man, who had been on all of my canceled flights with me, asked me what I was doing.
He got excited about the idea of driving, and since he already had a car reserved in Alexandria, got the reservation changed to Houston so that we could drive together.

My mom, of course, freaked out (she had recently seen the movie Taken), and interrogated him as if we were in high school and it was my prom date. She even went so far as to ask if she could call his wife (which she luckily did not do). She wanted to talk about where he was from and where he went to school and where he lived and what he did for a living and any other possible question she could think of. By the end of it all, we knew his entire life story. Poor guy, right?

He then proceeded to drive me all the way home. I guess he could tell that it was probably not a smart idea to let me drive, given how delusionaly tired I was. So he drove, and every time I offered to drive, he said it was no big deal and just kept driving. I think he was just happy to be getting there on time (he was headed to Marksville for work) and to have someone to drive in the car with him, to keep him company.


I seriously don't think I could have gotten any luckier. So I got home at about 3 or 4 in the morning, then somehow woke up at 8 the next morning (ohhhh, jet lag), and I don't think I have ever in my life been more grateful to anyone than I was to Jason. Than I am to Jason, I should say.

So anyhow, my attempt at getting home was, well,. . .interesting. But I made it!

Stay tuned, because next time (which will be soon), I'll start writing about being home and Christmas!!!!

Note: I borrowed the pictures from random sites without permission. Also, the rain and fog pictures are NOTHING compared to what it was actually like.