Howdy y'all!

I'm back from my trip to Texas...did ya miss me? I had a great time in TX, it was hot, but not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Of course the extent of my time outside was spent walking to/from the car and a few hours in a Cessna, so maybe I'm not the best judge of exactly how hot it was. G's doing great and settling into his job with the airline just fine and still playing Navy a few times a week. He hasn't changed a bit since I saw him last year; save for his accent. It's so strong now that I had to give him crap about sounding so Texan (he used to pride himself on his non-accent).

Once I got to TX everything was fine, but getting there had some interesting moments. On the way to LAX Monday morning I heard that Houston had a bit of flooding and by the time I was boarding my flight, that "bit of flooding" had shut down HOU which is where I was scheduled to change planes. So we're all snug in our seats and the Captain gets on the PA to tell us that we're flying to TX but he's not sure where we're going to land with the most likely candidate being Dallas but Austin as a backup. Hmm....okay, I guess Dallas and Austin are closer to where G is in CRP than LA is, but when it took us 3 months to sync our schedules up for these 4 days, I was pretty close to panic mode. Luckily, by the time we got to HOU the runways and weather had cleared so we were able to land just a few minutes behind schedule and I was able to make my connecting flight to CRP (last onboard so I was stuck in the middle seat...yikes).

My first impression of Texas is that Texans are about the nicest people I think I've ever met, chatty, but very nice. I'm not really one for chatting up my seatmates on flights, but can just about tell you anything you want to know about the four people I sat with on my flights (all Texans) . Yup, the two people I sat between on the way to CRP sure had a lot of info to dish out. We covered the differences between property taxes in Flour Bluff and the Island (mind you I didn't even know what Flour Bluff and the Island were), the weather, the booze cruise (only $10 on Tuesdays and not worth more than that), the corrupt CRP government, the drama the new Wal Mart caused, why the Bennigans closed, whether or not a visit to South Padre Island is worth the drive, the best way to get to Ingleside from the airport (I never mentioned Ingleside, but the information was provided anyway), since my friend is a pilot why wasn't he flying us from HOU to CRP, was my friend picking me up inside the terminal because they had a few questions for him (????) and lastly, since I'm from LA, do I know anyone famous. Did I mention the flight from HOU to CRP was about 38 minutes? Yeah, are you feeling my pain yet? Luckily, Jim the flight attendant felt my pain and provided me with two vodkas to help make my flight a little more enjoyable ("sweetie I think you could use these" and "your money is no good here")...have I mentioned how much I love Southwest lately?!

So my next impression of Texas is that it's really big and really flat. And I mean flat. G and I went flying and I think the highest point in CRP is the freeway interchange just outside the airport. Speaking of flying, G let me fly for about 25 minutes which was so much fun. It took me a few minutes to get the feel of the plane but after that I was good to go. My turns weren't all that impressive though (couldn't keep my altitude and turn at the same time) but G said I did very well for my first time...nice compliment coming from a flight instructor!
Here are a few pictures I took of my Texan adventure:
Not quite Hawaii, but still nice:


Downtown Corpus Christi:

Thought all my pilot friends would appreciate this. We took the uh, "scenic" route on the way back from CRP to HOU. We got spun for a bit due to weather, then vectored around the darkest storm clouds I've ever seen.

Scenic route courtesy of FlightAware.com and Mother Nature: