the airport shuttle to the airport . . . what?

It is funny how re-telling this story is much more fun than living it realtime. Don't get me wrong, we were all making the best of a ridiculous situation! Even as it was happening we were starting to laugh about it, sort of . . .

Once we found the shuttle desk, thanks to Captain Ernie, we waited to get on a bus to travel to Bush International. Because I'm the seasoned traveler of the group and have flown into and out of Houston many, many times, I knew that Bush was the only airport that flies internationally. (I'm actually laughing at myself . . . seasoned traveler . . . PLEASE!) In case you were wondering, this inexpensive little adventure is changing rapidly. Nothing, from here on out, ends up being inexpensive.

Enter, Nancy Broadway . . . I truly wish I had a picture of Nancy. My goodness, we have a picture of just about everything and everyone else. I digress . . . Nancy Broadway was in charge of our shuttle. I put it that way because she usually is the driver, but tonight, she was training Susan. Tonight, we were guinea pigs. Not only did Susan not know a lot about the airport transit system or what was expected of her, but surprisingly, she didn't know her way around. Houston is HUGE. It is probably close to 3 hours in diameter. (ever notice how you ask a woman how far something is, she gives you the length of time it takes to get there; a man on the other hand will give you the exact mileage . . . like who scored the winning touchdown in the 1981 Superbowl, and what the final score was . . . they know, they actually know those stats) Anyway, Miss Susan was having a very difficult time with her sense of direction, in her hometown, not to mention her questionable ability to steer this bus on the highway. Again, can you imagine? 

Nancy Broadway, however, was an angel. She overheard our mixed grumbling and giggling in the back of the bus and offered up her assistance. She called a few hotels around Bush International, asked which one we would prefer, asked the chosen site to hold a room and be on the lookout for us (like that would be very hard . . . still in matching attire and not nearly as cute as we had been several hours earlier) Nancy was a total stranger. There was nothing in it for her. She just saw a need and addressed it. What great customer service! Thankfully, we arrived at the hotel, unharmed and grateful to be settling somewhere for the night. (in our 20's, we could have gone for days without sleep, sustenance, a change of clothes; now, we each just wanted a glass of wine and a bed . . . it wasn't even 10:00)


At this point in the day, we were so "slap-happy" that anything would have been funny. We were starving, wanted wine and were ready for bed, almost in that order. Luckily, the restaurant saw our matching outfits, listened to the Readers Digest version of our story, and decided to serve us even though they were suppose to be closing. (Are you noticing the subtle trend we seem to be setting? Total strangers, not only being kind and generous, but going out of their way to help US! It's a beautiful thing.) We sit down, order and enjoy. I think Samantha and Charlotte would absolutely agree that it wasn't until we were eating and laughing and drinking our wine, that we realized it really didn't matter that we weren't in Cabo. We were in Houston Texas, with a waiter named Qui (forget about the pronunciation), looking at a cowboy with two hats and celebrating our new time of departure to Mexico . . . We were able to book three new tickets for the next morning, from the same piece of technology that had burst our earlier travel bubble, while riding in a shuttle bus from one airport to another, in one of the largest cities in the United States . . . things were definitely looking up!

Yes, that is 2 cowboy hats! 

To be continued . . .