A week in Texas

A week in Texas

I don't get to Texas very often but this trip is a revisit from last year.

I started my morning as usual by getting up at 2:30 am.  This gives me about an hour to get my stuff together, into the truck and down the road.  I have about a 1.25 hour drive to the airport.  Being that early in the a.m. it's usually just me and a few semi's on I-80.  Since this was my first flight of the year, I like to be a little early to the airport just in case some new TSA rules popped up in the past few weeks I've been at home.  The drive was uneventful as usual.  I save the company a couple dollars by parking in Economy.  I only use the parking deck if the weather is really foul so I'm partially sheltered getting to the airport entrance.  As I walked towards the Delta counter I could see the line was enormous.  It was now just after 4 am and they hadn't even started to set up the lines.  I used the kiosk to check in and print my boarding passes and proceeded to wait.  I could tell the frequent fliers were all irritated by the wait but by 4:30 am we were moving along.  Being able to use Sky Priority is a plus for days like this.  During most of the year the Atlanta flight is at 6 am but probably due to the necessity of deicing, it was scheduled for 5:40 am.  I checked my bags, did my usual stroll through pre-check and claimed my usual seat by the gate.  Getting that seat is partly why I get there so early. We boarded, deiced and had a pleasant flight to Atlanta.  I did score First Class so the I was able to have some hot tea and snooze a little.  With a little over an hour layover I headed for the Sky Club by T6.  Met up with my colleague and had some cappuccino with a bagel.  Boarding in Atlanta is real fun.  When they board the Premium cabin that includes all Diamonds in Atlanta, it pretty much means half the passengers.  I didn't get a seat in first but did get a window in Economy Comfort. Better than the back or middle.  The accommodations were a little tight but livable and it was a fairly short flight to Dallas.  Arriving at Dallas early at 11:30 am made it even better.  

Now comes the rental car bus.  The first one we get to is packed so we decide to wait for the next one.  When it arrives, a whole slue of people come out of the airport and start piling on cutting in front of everyone that was already waiting.  We were packed in like sardines.  The gentleman standing behind me was at the doors and you could here the wind coming through them as we made our way to the rental car facility.  Every time the bus turned a corner I almost imagined the guy flopping out as the doors popped open.  We finally made it to the facility and on the board for Avis Preferred had CTR next to my name. So out to the Preferred Center I went to find out what car we were getting.  They gave us a Mitsubishi SUV.  Roomy enough to fit all our bags and us.  I set up the blue tooth for my phone, plugged in the address for my GPS and off we went.  It would be a 2 hour drive from Dallas to Palestine, TX so we stopped for lunch at a Denny's along the way.  After all the holiday foods I wanted to cut back so I had a grilled chicken sandwich.  We arrived at the customers facility by 3:30 pm.  We replaced the suspected part and the system worked.  I rewired all the temporary wiring I had done last year so they could run and tested the system.  There was another problem but with the equipment connected to ours and helped them fix that problem as well.  Once we were finished we packed up and headed towards our next customer.  We planned on staying at a midway point as we did last time in College Station, TX.  We chose the same TownePlace Suites we had stayed at last time.  Finally ending our day at 7 pm when we checked in.  The rooms are very nice and spacious.  Many restaurant choices as well.  We opted not to go anywhere else tonight and figured we'd meet downstairs at 7 am to checkout.  We'll have breakfast at the Denny's up the street as we did on our last trip here.

Tomorrow we head to Alleyton, TX...