Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Galveston: May 10



Events of Sunday, May 10th - aka "Mother's Day"

A normal Mother's Day would have the family, after church, getting together at either my house or my brother's house...all of us "moms" would watch the men barbeque...and then we'd sit and have fun and tell stories.

However, today is the day I'm heading to Galveston for a mission trip - so after some last minute packing in the morning, our family heads out to have a quick lunch before heading to the airport. Well, apparently, every one else in TOWN has the same idea - to take mom out to eat - so the restaurants are absolutely packed! We finally end up at Jason's Deli for a quick meal, and then it's off to the airport.

I'm flying down with Anne - and we fly from KCI to Dallas, and then a quick flight to Houston. The first leg of the flight is a little bumpy - and I am doing this without any medication - so I'm a little anxious but manage to control the ever-present panic attacks I normally have when flying. I'm trying to do this drug-free because I will be the one to pick up a rental car in Houston to drive us down to Galveston - and that won't be possible if I'm relaxing on Valium.

Our flight is somewhat delayed, so by the time we land in Dallas, we run from one gate immediately to the other where they are already boarding for Houston. Whew - just made it. This flight is hardly up in the air before we're already descending - I like those kind of flights! Too quick to get nervous or anxious about!

After getting our luggage, we have a little bit of adventure getting our rental car. We have to shuttle over to Avis so Anne could change her reservation over to Gina & Sherri (who are coming in later tonight), and then shuttle back to the airport, and then catch the shuttle to Enterprise, where we pick up the car I had reserved.

After getting our rental car, Anne and I begin the drive down I-45 South to Galveston. Traffic is a little heavy near Houston, but lightens up as we get closer to the coast. We arrive in Galveston around 8:30 pm and make our way to Crockett United Methodist Church, our "home" away from home for the next week.

Accommodations are excellent - showers, a living room,

...spacious sleeping quarters with real mattresses on the bunk beds,

...a HUGE kitchen and dining room:

and blessed air conditioning. Although - when we arrive - the A/C has been turned off and it is over 90 degrees inside. The heat knocks us over when we walk in - so we crank down the A/C so it will begin to cool off. Unbeknownst to us, we will all forget to turn it back up before we retire for the night. Big mistake, as you will read later in another blog entry.

After unpacking, we hook up with some more members of our team and head to Tortuga, a local Mexican restaurant which I remembered before as being very good. It was just as good as I remembered - perhaps better. Yummo.

The rest of our team arrives and we all head back to the church, where we settle in and go to bed - got to get up early and go to work! A self-portrait of me in my jammies, right before bedtime:

I go to sleep, happy that I am back in Galveston - it's a wonderful island with awesome people and I'm excited to be able to come back and do my part to help out.

Peace.

No comments: