Thursday Pt. 3 in Texas.. drama!

Now Thursday, just as my trip coming to TX had some delays and was long...  I woke up at 1:50am, and was soon on the road after the goodbyes and telling her "how proud I am and that I love her".   I only needed to get to the Austin area, fill the car with gas, drop it off in the lot at 4am, was already pre checked in online.. simple plan.. but of course, always has to be something exciting to get your adrenaline going, (and the heartrate).

I had GPS and watched along the highway as the different gas prices fluctuated 10 cents in either direction. I had an idea that I was near the airport, but not that I was going to take a direction that leads me onto a side road with nothing open.. So I turned around after a couple of miles, get back on the highway (using GPS) and the time is running short, so I exit fairly quick (should have kept going in hindsight) and stop at a gas station in a rather hmmm quiet area this time of day and not ideal. I quickly fill the car, jump back in, mostly from the cold and some from the "fright" of surviving..... only to drop my key and the rectangular plastic ID thingy between the seat and the center console.. WHAT!   I can feel it, but can't get it free, it's stuck on something in the frame of the seat, ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? and so I keep pulling, and pushing it forward, open the door and lean into the floor board, moving the seat backwards trying to get a hold of the ring.. it's not budging and I'm not believing what is going on presently in this not so desirable location at 3:40am.

I fought with it for what seemed like an eternity, but was perhaps only a minute. I than headed over to the night window, tapping on the glass and calling for the "nowhere to be found" older guy who was just there mopping the floor.. he appears to my relief, and I tell him my dilemna and ask if he has a screw driver to try and free it. He turns around walking towards the back and I'm not sure what his plan is (could he be coming outside and rescue me) no, but he does return with a flat head screw driver and slides it through the metal box, and I thank him.
As I return to the car, I am not sure if this is going to work, or am I doomed to having my car towed back into the rental lot at the airport.. I put the screwdriver to work in the ring of the key section and am pulling with all the force I had, and it's obvious that the metal is shredding off the ring and still NOTHING moving. I stopped and just said JESUS HELP ME, I AM NOT ABLE TO DO THIS... and with a few more tugs, the key comes free... THANK YOU LORD, and so I go back to finding the other part which will identify my car, if not my body should my wallet disappear with the element of surprise from my open door and my inattention to any other details going on around me.. I KEEP CALLING on the Lord outloud in prayer as I tug on the ring of the still jammed piece ..  it suddenly breaks free. THANK YOU THANK YOU And I quickly return the screwdriver to the box, jump into the safety of the car, lock the doors and get moving... all the while just thanking JESUS that it turned out okay.. uh yes, my heart rate was beating out of my chest.   Whew!!!!!

As soon as I got to the next red light, I set the GPS back to the airport and a different route comes up from whereever the heck I was at that time and away I go glad it's deserted roads, eyes wide open for any cops. I arrived at the airport lot around 4:10.. and when all is said and done for unloading luggage and returning the key at the original counter I got it from.. find the US AIRWAYS doesn't open it terminal until 5am... I am now more than anxious to get this day over with.

Both my flights for the day went well, I had a 4 hour layover in Phoenix (3.25 hours of flying time) but the flight was cheap and that was a small price to pay in the delay.. at the end of the layover when standing in an area waiting to board according to our ticketed zone for the plane to Long Beach, there are three people mingled near me who are talking and this bearded guy points at me and says "I know you from somewhere".......................................... ha, after the morning I had had, I was flattered at his line but he didn't strike me as anyone I remembered or knew recently.. and has I have changed over the years, we were both heavier.. but I humored him and asked him "where he thought it might be from?"

He threw out an obscure answer of Brooks college, which was wrong! He asked me where I did work, and I said UPS, and he nearly jumps up and claps his hands and says "yes, Cerritos" to which I said "right, that is where I work".. so after a few exchanges of "small world", "what brings you through Phoenix".. he tells me his name which STILL has not come to my mind. But he has convinced me he knows me and that I had trained him (along with 6000 others in 28 years) so I thought he said his name was Shannon Wybert.. and low and behold if I am not seated in 12D right side of aisle and he is ... you guessed it.. seated in 12B across the aisle from me.... thankful that my seatmate in 12C didn't show up, I slide over and take the window seat, putting a buffer between he and I for convenience..

Now, if you know me, I am an easy going talker but today, I wasn't really interested in playing catch up or "name that supervisor game" since he hadn't worked at UPS in 6 years. But I played along for awhile in the game. Just before takeoff I kicked over the soda carried on, spilling the small amount of contents on the floor and the ice.. I'm kicking the ice under the seat, thinking murphy's law was at me hard today, when the flight attendant walks by (cutie) and notices, and danged if she didn't bring me back a stack of paper towel to clean it up.. I comply and Shannon and I laugh it off. Now as the cute little attendant had long delivered our drinks, Shannon is sleeping on his tray and nodding into his hand, I'm tempted to take his 1/2 full cup off the tray so that he doesn't tip the contents over.. but I don't and soon he sits up and not 2 minutes later he knocks over his glass and spills it into the little magazine holder in front of him. He's disbelieving what happened, and I just shrug and said "it's contagious apparantly for our row".. we laugh as he than proceeds to fish his IPOD and ear phones out of it, places them on the empty seat next to me, and goes back to the tail of the plane to find the cute flight attendant.. he returns with his own stack of papertowels and proceeds to clean out the IPOD, magazines and ice.. he looks and me and I lean over and said "he certainly was willing to go the distance to meet the flight attendant:.. He agreed that he was..

I put on my IPOD and turned up the volume and closed my eyes.. Soon we are approaching Long Beach airport about 20 minutes late. I snapped some pictures on my phone of the places others would recognize as we approached.

Big Bear mountain snow caps

at the top of this picture is Los Alamitos Air Base

The Naval Base on Seal Beach exit off the 405 Fwy,  and it's bunkers

the rooftops of Leisure World Seal Beach Blvd & the 405 Fwy

The UPS facility at the Long Beach Airport

As I stood up to get my bags out of the overhead, I asked him to spell his last name Why-bert, and as he is, I'm seemingly dyslexically wondering why it isn't matching up with the pronunciation I had said in my head.. But it was actually Shannon Wieppert (we-pert). And now I remembered "who & how" he looked back in the day of working at UPS.. After hitting the tarmac, pick up carry on bags they checked below that are now on a cart, saying our goodbyes and nice to see each other etc.   I head to pick up my luggage at baggage claim, can't believe that it's only 11:45am and that it seemed like I had lived an entire day already.

So really, small world

Monday - Wednesday Pt. 2 in Texas

Monday & Tuesday;  Ashley had to work 12 hour shifts, I was on my own to keep busy.. I watched movies, went shopping at WalMart SUPERCENTER "numerous times" and was thankful it was just up the road a mile or so, and had dinner waiting for Ashley each night I was there. Monday was tacos, and Tuesday was spaghetti. I baked carmel bars on Monday, putting some in the freezer along with the cookies..  We watched movies after dinner, and I stayed up later than Ashley.

pictures I took of Ashley's apartment

 guest room, we gave her a deluxe inflatable mattress for guests, very comfy

living room

Ashley's master bedroom / bath

Tuesday I was planning to head down 2.5 hours south to San Antonio to see Jennifer and her three girls. But this extremely strange weather pattern which was only listed as rain on weather.com the week before turned out to be a snowstorm that was to sock in the entire mid-central section of Texas.. Killeen had snow ALL DAY long. When I brought Ashley to the base at 5:45am it was only a light mist and cold, but on the way home I stopped at H.E.B. (Hubert E Butts) store to get a gallon of Milk, and when I got out it was a ice pelting rain (sleet) that froze you to the bone.. and it was snow as I pulled into the apt parking lot and dreaded having to get my arm out the window to open the automated gate with the slide card. Killeen got the most at 3-4 inches, and the pictures make for an interesting trip memory, needless to say, I decided not to make the drive to San Antonio.  Now I'm the independent adventurer but I just didn't want to have a longer trip due to weather slow downs (speed is more my deal) and/or have someone else run into my rental car in the snotty weather and make the hassle of dealing with the aggravation.  

The snow pictures are mostly taken from Ashley's back balcony and is like a time progression of the same views as this bizarre storm that moved in and is completely out of there normal pattern.  We overall received about 3-4 inches in Killeen over the 10 hours that it fell in a pretty consistent flurries.  Dallas received 11 inches which is a bit north east of where we are.

This is from the landing outside her front door and that is my rental car below.

This snowball is the work of two young boys starting their accumalation for a snowman

This is my Toyota Corolla rental car (recall ??)

This CA city kid found out the aggravation of getting into your car without dumping the snow onto your seat before you sit down...  ugh, wet ass is not comfortable.. this below is my view out windshield

This is the Expressway, next to the highway

Not a good day for selling cars you can't see..

This is the highway 190 West towards Ft. Hood

Heading from the Highway 190, this is south on W.S. Young Dr, across the street is Killen Civic & Convention Center,  Civic Arts Center, and a Shiloh Inn

I am just passing a newly built Baptist Church on the left and Ashley's Apt complex Brookside is what you are seeing here

Yesterday it was 55 degrees and sunny and the gardners laid sod here around the trees and planted flowers.. hmm what a difference a day makes.

this is the extent of the boys snowman, when I had returned from errands, I had suggested they make it a smaller base, as they might not get enough snow to make two more of them..   later in the day when I came out to take this picture, as you can see they had scraped up all the snow in the vicinity to make this one..  apparantly they grew weary, tired of hauling snow, but Texas boys don't get much opps to do this..  so fun anyway

It started snowing before sunup and continued for about 10 hours.. Texas does not know Snow

Wednesday; was Ashley's day off and we just chilled after sleeping late, ran some errands after she took me to the Ft. Hood base to see it in the daylight and gave me a tour of what she knew of. She only had a rental car for a short time after arriving in Texas in January.   Her car is still in the ocean somewhere heading to GA, USA, where it will be trucked to Ft Hood. It's been delayed 6 days and so it might be another two weeks at best before she can go to Dallas and take possession of it. Her friend Jenny an army nurse (married to Jason) said she would take her there to get her car.. this sweet woman who has been a god send in helping her out, they went to OBLC together in San Antonio in Oct-Dec.  She lives near Ashley and gives her rides to and from work unless there is a drastic difference in their hours.  Another woman Otto Thomas she met, who was stationed at Ft. Hood and is now a reservist continuing to live in Killeen.  She lives on the same road and is available whenever she needs a ride to get to the base, and Thursday Ashley was borrowing her truck to get to the base early for her p/t test..  Thank you Lord for providing this for her.

the next few pictures are of the Carl R. Darnell Medical Center where she reports to each day.  It's about the size of a Lakewood Regional Medical Center in CA...

this is sitting in front of the hospital

One of many churches/chapels on a base that is 340 miles square

park trail between the road and housing

a smaller entrance/exit,  one of ten,  the main one has about 8 checkpoint security lanes

This is in a neighborhood where Lt Jenny lives who is a friend of Ashley's, some interesting snowmen

Wednesday night, we ate leftovers of Spaghetti with an early dinner, watched the last three episodes of Friends finale season and than went to bed at 8pm..  I had to leave for the Austin Airport at 2am for my 6am flight.  So whenever you go to bed early, for me, I don't just fall to sleep, and so while I had the opportunity for 5.5 hours of sleep, it was more like 3 with all the lying there willing myself to sleep, & clock watching.