Hard way home - visit with Nephews

We got up Thursday at 4 AM, and were at the airport at 5 AM, only to find that things haven't opened up yet. The plane left at 7 AM, on schedule. When we got close to Houston, Marianne noticed that we were flying in circles. The pilot later announced that the Houston airport was closed due to weather, and that we were going to have to divert to San Antonio to refuel. We eventually arrived in Houston, but had missed our connecting flight. We were put on standby for the next flight to Denver.

When we arrived at the gate, we found a bit of a mob scene, with a long standby list. The scene felt a little predatory, with stress all around, even security was called. We ultimately did not get onto the flight. I called the Continental 800 number, only to be told that the next flight that they could get us a confirmed seat on was on Sunday morning! Three unscheduled nights in Houston.

We resigned ourselves to an unscheduled vacation in Houston, and went to the baggage office to try to retrieve our bags. The lady in the baggage office did a quick check, found two seats on the last flight in the day, and put us in them. The only Continental employee who helped us was in baggage.

Richard called his nephew Ryan, who lives in Houston, and arranged to have dinner with him. Ultimately, it turned out to be dinner with both of Richard's nephews, Ryan and Patrick, and Patrick's girlfriend Kelly. It was good to see them; Patrick is doing better, having gotten into a new environment.

We flew home without incident, and took the 12:10 AM shuttle to Boulder, arriving home in the early morning hours of Friday.

Carnival in Veracruz

We finished packing Wednesday morning, and Cliff was nice enough to drive us to the bus station. We took a 3.5 hour bus ride from Catemaco to Veracruz, and checked into the hotel Ruiz Milan. Both the bus ride and the hotel were comfortable.

Carnival was getting wound up in Veracruz, with the children's carnival parade the night we would be in town. We got a front row seat for the parade. We got to talking to Coral and her mother, Lilla. They are from Mexico City, and Coral is in the party business.

The parade was great, with kids in fancy costumes, preschoolers parading, and loud music.

After the parade we visited the Sanborn's bookstore, and then headed back to our hotel, as the alarm goes off at 4 AM.