Day 6 LA to Houston

Day 6 LA to Houston

Problematic sleep last night after getting to bed at 10:30 but up at 5 AM this morning. 

Quickly up, dressed, locked the case, breakfast, made sandwiches and out of there just before 6 am.

Great run to airport in 37 minutes, despite fog as we got closer to the city. My bag was over weight by 2 lbs- over full flight. So out came the 2 fruit cakes and perfect. Deb‘s bag got snagged again. She had forgotten a bottle of water. Easily solved. Not like the man in front who had a box of cat food, which had to have each tin checked! Luckily we checked in when we did because there wasn’t a lot of time to spare. We had to catch a bus to terminal 52 and wait.BUT we didn’t have a seat allocation and it was an overbooked flight. (Big baseball game in Houston.) They were offering $400 if you would wait till the 1:30 flight. At the last minute Deb and I got seat allocations and then it was off to catch the next bus to the plane. We finally took off at 8:45. Good flight to Houston with minimal turbulence and a free cup of very hot tea. No GF snacks. A full flight, so the over head lockers were full up too and my bag got squashed under the seat in front. Not helping my loaf of bread- now a loaf of crumbs. Both Deb and I were sewing on the trip, but most on board were sleeping? With the time difference we landed at 1:42 new time, so luckily we each had our own sandwich.

After collecting bags we went out the front and I used my Uber app for the first time. Sure enough our car arrived in 6 minutes and was $31 compared to $56 for a taxi! Nice driver from East Africa who had only heard the terror stories about Australian snakes and other nasty things. Clean car but he definitely needed a wheel alignment.

Arrived at our hotel “Club Quarters” just before 3 pm, but our room was not ready, so we sat in the foyer and had a lovely cup of tea while we waited. We were pleasantly surprised with our room. A good size. We were pre warned re one queen bed and one sofa bed. Great facilities in the kitchen area with a few minor issues- like no plug for the sink? So we used a small peanut container. Convection oven, which we finally worked out how to use, two burner hotplates, full fridge, dishwasher, sink.  Bathroom was good too, except the hot /cold message was completely reversed in reality? No exhaust fan- nice “sauna like” atmosphere. Think the maid needs to take a bit more care in dusting, but it was basically clean and well presented. Great facilities here at the hotel. A huge laundry with washers and driers and laundry powder, fitness room. We had to ring down and get a man to come up and show us how to pull out the sofa bed. (My bed for the week.) Comfy and fully made up already. No safe?

We unpacked and I found that my bag had been TSA checked- note inside the wrapping of the jam jar? Deb's bag had been checked too. We went via the George Brown Convention Centre to see how long it would take to walk. There is a light rail right outside our hotel straight to the centre. The town was filled with people going to the HUGE baseball match just up the road. It was a perfect evening to take photos with so many buildings reflecting the shadows of other buildings. We went around a big block to the nearest supermarket, which had many quick meals, it didn’t really have much basic food. We got a few veggies, some fruit and things for dinner tonight.

We walked up to Main St to try to get to the CVS- but it had closed. A few homeless up there, but mostly tourists. Back to the hotel and made dinner. Both of us needed to wash our hair after dinner, then it was download and diary time! Deb had a chat with Lester. Lovely to hear that Melbourne is having a cold weather snap.

Another day/ a different city. Tomorrow: another early start to catch the bus at 7:30 for a trip to La Grange quilt museum.