(Denver airport)
I woke up around 5 when the dog came into the bedroom and let all the hallway light in. I hadn’t planned to get up until 5:20 or so but I wasn’t going to get back to sleep so I got up and showered and dressed.
About that time, Alan got back from taking the boys to the shuttle spot for the Dam to Dam run. It was raining and the boys had over an hour to stand in the rain before the 7 a.m. start time.
I ate a couple mangos and some crackers and read the paper before we went to the airport.
We ran into Dwight at the ticket counter. He was part of a group headed to Alaska for a cruise/tour.
Alan walked me to the security entrance, we said our goodbyes and parted.
I went to the gate and pulled out my book for the trip, “Shadow of the Wind.” It’s something I picked up at the last booksale without knowing anything about it. It just sounded interesting.
I read all the way to Denver and I was hooked almost immediately. It’s a very engaging book written in a very lyrical style. The original was written in Spanish and this translation still has the feel of how the Spanish-speaking people I know put words together.
In Denver, we landed around 9 local time (10 by my watch). We landed at gate B88 and my next flight was out of B16. That was one loooooong walk, but it didn’t really matter as I had 2 hours to do it in.
I strolled along looking for a pretzel to tide me over. I finally found an Auntie Annie’s but there was a long line, including a family with a number of small, tired children. I decided to hit the bathroom first and come back later. When I got back, there was still a line, it was just made up of different people. I got in line anyway and then saw they wanted $3.50 for a pretzel. I decided to try something else. I ended up at a Pizza Hut Express where I could walk in, grab a box of bread sticks, pay and walk out in a minute or so only $2 lighter.
I went to my gate and called Alan to see how the race went. Eric’s time was good and Alan saw him finish. Then it took them over an hour to catch up with Ryan. They’re all tired and hungry now.
(Houston airport)
I got off the plane in Houston and Marcia was sitting there waiting. We’re apparently going to El Sal on the plane I got to Houston on.
I got a mocha at Starbucks and shocked both Marcia and Joe with my foray into “the dark side” since they both know me as tea-drinker and general coffee-disliker. But hey, since Alan has been making me mochas, I confess I’ve more than once strayed into coffee-land. Granted, mocha is ‘beginner coffee’ but it’s coffee all the same.
I knitted a bootie and got the pattern written down.
While we were standing in line to board, a man said “Bienvenidos a centro America.” to Marcia and me. He then asked if we were sisters and we started talking about where we were going and doing and such. He saw the Dupont tag on my bag and said he was an agronomist with responsibility for central America and headed to Guatemala. He’s flying into El Salvador because the Guatemala airport is closed due to volcanic activity there. His name is Wilfredo and when we started talking agribusiness, we switched to English because I just don’t know those words in Spanish. His English is very good.
We shook hands when he got to his row on the plane and I continued on back to mine.
He came back to my row several times during the flight to give me his business card, ask if we had someone meeting us at the airport, etc. He also said he’d be back through the Berlin area on Sunday and wondered if he could meet up with us there. I told him we were leaving on Saturday.
That would have been interesting…there is a agro supplier in Mercedes Umaña that we stayed with the first time I went to El Salvador (almost 10 years ago…) so I know there is ‘agribusiness’ in the area but I don’t know much about it.
