Oh, joy...here I am, back in Houston for another three weeks...and let's just say that my reintroduction to the city reinforced why I hate this town.
My trip here? WORST. TRIP. EVER. Actually, most of the flight from Portland was exceedingly uneventful- the best kind of flight, as any frequent traveler will tell you. Once we began our approach to Houston, a severe storm rolled through the Bush Interclusterf--k Airport area, and we were put into a holding pattern for 20 minutes. Eventually we were allowed to land in a driving rain and lightning storm. It rained so hard in fact, that it took an hour and a half to get my bags. By the time I did get my bags, most of the roads out of the the airport had flooded, and I had to take a tram to another terminal just to catch a shuttle that could actually make it to the rental car center.
After some moderate inconvenience, I finally got into my rental car...and then the fun really began. Traffic was backed up in truly EPIC fashion from all of the flooding in the area. At one point, I was stuck in traffic so bad that it took me an hour just to go one mile, and that so I could make a U-turn and drive through standing water back in the direction I'd already come from. It was a nightmare, and it made for one damn long day. I deplaned at 6pm. By the time I finally got to my hotel- a distance of 26 miles- it was almost 11pm. No, I was NOT a happy camper.
To make matters even more interesting, the travel mavens at my company booked me onto a flight into Bush Interclusterf--k Airport...and into a hotel next to Hobby Airport. No, I'm probably shouldn't complain, because at least I'm an decent hotel this trip, and not one that smells like old pee. Things could always be worse, and there are still people in this area who would dearly love to have my hotel room. Still, even I have to wonder if anyone in our travel department has ANY idea just how big this area is...and what an unimaginable clusterf--k can be when things go wrong?
I. HATE. THIS. (&^%$#@. TOWN. And yet here I am. Again. And I'm going to try to make the best of things as long as I'm here. Hey, why make myself miserable? I can console myself with the knowledge that I'll eventually be going home to Portland. Hey, things could be worse; the could be the Houston I came back to three days after Hurricane Ike came through.
Hey, at least the weather's nice....
