In roughly September, October my friend Blair's husband secretly mess ended me inviting me to a surprise party for Blair to celebrate her 40th Birthday! Of course I said yes! At the time, the world was somewhat getting over this whole CoVID thing... but as we all know then it got worse again. But I was committed and felt safe about it so the travel plans stayed. Besides I was getting to use up some of that credit I earned when our Dominican Republic trip got canceled last March. Since we are loyal Delta flyers, and apparently that's a good thing because they have the best CoVID policies, I was stuck with having to have a layover in ATLANTA! Now if you look at a map you'll see that Houston is straight south of Wichita... so I had to fly 3 hours out of the way, just to fly back. URG. Going into it I was super excited because a full day by myself in an airport, yes please. I had an uber pick me up about 4:50am on a Monday for my early flight out of Wichita. Mask on for uber rides. Got on my plane up in the air, started on audio book number 1.
Oh yes forgot about this. So I had a stapler as a gift for Blair, it was a fancy stapler but caused them to take a double look in my bag, lol. I checked TSA website ahead of time so I knew it was okay to bring a stapler on board.
Got to see the sun rise.
And made it to Atlanta.
Delta is great that they require everyone to keep masked up and we were all pretty spaced out on the plane, so nice not having anyone next to me! They hand out a pre-packaged treat bag with a small bottle of water, cheese its, a small chocolate, and my favorite a biscoff biscuit, or whatever it's called. I decided to put the little baggie aside beside the water to give to the kids. I figure if I got two on the way down and two on the way back, hey that's four souvenirs, lol.
Each plane ride they had me gate check my carry on since we were on tiny planes and it wouldn't fit up top. Along with pretty much everyone else on the plane, waiting for my bag.
Once to the Atlanta airport I got my bearings, and found my connecting gate, which was close. Now for COFFEE! Well not just any coffee, espresso. The one coffee shop in my gate area had a broken down espresso machine, since I had two or so hours I decided to travel to the terminal next to mine where the map showed two Starbucks. Arrived and half the terminal was closed for construction (where one of the Starbucks was) the other had a CRAZY line. I decided to just wait since I had the time. Wasn't too bad as in the end it only took about 40 minutes.
Back on the plane headed to Houston.
I arrived and Zach and Blair picked me up about 2:30. Finally, able to take off my mask, lol. That was the worse part of traveling... wearing a mask for ten hours. Blair didn't know I was coming until they pulled into the airport and she asked "Are we picking up Daisy?" :-D
First stop on the way to the Galveston Beach House was a winery. We met up with a few more of her local friends that were going to spend the next two nights together. We had fun tasting wine and visiting.
We stayed at the vineyard til dark, where I realized that Texas sunsets look WAY different than Kansas ones. Never thought something in Kansas would be better than anything else, but God had a message to share and that was there are things to be grateful for about Kansas, :-P
Made our way down to Galveston and got unloaded at the AirBnB on the beach! It was a super big, nice house. We spent a little time, then headed to eat at a nearby restaurant called The Spot.
The next morning was so great to visit. Zach cooked us a great breakfast, coffee on the patio, despite the cold wind.
I went for a run on the beach. Of course I can never pass up an opportunity to run on vacation, especially on the beach. Heck I run leading up to a vacation just to run while traveling.
Only mistake was I ran with the wind on the first half, then had to run INTO the wind on the second half. I would learn from this and take a different route the following day.
Gotta get some photos for the 'gram in :-D
A little later in the afternoon we went for pedicures.
Evening walk on the beach before going out for a fancy birthday dinner.
Happy 40th Birthday Blair! Love you!!
The moon was so gorgeous these photos just don't do it justice to what it looked like in real life.
Zack had reservations at Gaido's
I slept with my blinds open to try and capture the sunrise... but it was cloudy and a little disappointing.
But since I was up early, I got in some quick yoga and went for another run. This time running EAST first so the wind would be in my favor for the second half, however it definitely was not as windy this day. I had to stop and record the sandpipers for Thomas. We had a sandpiper song in our music together class last year so I knew he'd love watching them. They were so cute!
I also got sight of a pretty good sized jelly fish!
Run done, another great breakfast made by Zach and then time to say goodbye. Two of our friends didn't stay the second night so there was just the six of us leaving on Wednesday morning.
Just as we left the rain starting coming down. We drove back to Houston and picked up Blair's girls from her parent's house. It was pouring down at this point. We had some more cake, a special cake that her sister had made for us all the night before at the beach house. Then back to Blair and Zack's house. We ordered carry out Chinese and watched a movie. I stayed at her place for the night before leaving on my plane the next day.
Hitched an Uber to the airport in the pouring rain and began my day of traveling back home through Atlanta.
Kyle and the kids picked me up from the airport about 7:00pm. We had a small little New Years eve celebration that night and toasted with sparkling apple cider. The boys aren't in this photo because they had both gotten in trouble and were already sent to bed :-/ but it was a fun little cheers just the four of us. Hoping for a great 2021!!
No comments:
Post a Comment