Trip to Houston

Prelude

Clouds moved in yesterday afternoon, and it rained some along the Wasatch Front, and humidity increased. The weatherman on TV talked about how humid it was and would continue to be during the coming days. Claudia and I had just returned from Houston, and this was not humid. Not even in the same ball park. Houston is humid.

Humidity in Salt Lake has never caused my glasses to fog up when I leave an air-conditioned building. That happened to me half a dozen times during the five days we were in Houston.

In fact, when we first mentioned to people that we were going to Houston, their incredulous response was always, “Houston in July? Why would you want to do that?” One person even told me that we should be able to find inexpensive lodging since no one goes to Houston in the summer.

We were able to find lodging in the MainStay Suites on Old Spanish Trail, near the hospital district, and not far from the Reliant Center (what used to be known as the Astrodome) that housed all six of us and fed us breakfast every morning and provided a place to exercise and park our two cars and was reasonably air-conditioned—all for $115 a day. Whether that was inexpensive I cannot say, but it seemed reasonable to me for housing six people (that works out to only $19.17 a day per person), especially when precious few places even allowed six people to stay together in the same room.

As to why we would go to Houston in July, that was easy enough. Eliza asked us to come play with her and two of our grandchildren (Peter, who will be four in October, and Aaron, who will be two in December) while Paul was off at class all day. He was here for a week doing a compounding seminar.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Utah, Colorado, Texas

About the time Michael was driving Claudia and me to the airport to catch our flight to Houston, Paul and Eliza were arriving in Houston by car from Atlanta. They had made the same trip in May and knew they had about a 13-hour drive in front of them. This time they left after Paul finished work on Monday and drove about five hours and stayed overnight in Mobile, Alabama, and then spent eight hours driving the rest of the way to Houston. Peter was disappointed that we were not already there.

Our plane was 15 minutes late leaving Salt Lake, and we were concerned that we had only 30 minutes in Denver before our next flight was scheduled to leave. Fortunately, the pilot flew fast enough to make up the 15 minutes we were late. There had been severe thunderstorms across Colorado, so everything was backed up in Denver. The plane we were concerned about getting on hadn’t even arrived at the gate yet to disgorge its passengers from wherever they were coming from. We waited and waited. Finally, the plane came, and we waited while the passengers filed off. We boarded the plane, and we waited inside the plane. The pilot announced that continuing thunderstorms prevented our being cleared to take off. We waited some more. We left Denver an hour late.

The first half of the flight from Denver to Houston was about as turbulent as any I’ve ever experienced. Claudia slept through most of it. She was bundled up in her sweater, which should have been a clue to me that she was not well. Even after arriving in Houston, she left her sweater on. That confirmed it. She later explained that whatever was ailing her had turned on all of a sudden while we were sitting in the Salt Lake airport waiting to begin our trip. Even though our plane arrived after midnight, it was still hot and muggy, and she was freezing.

We had arranged a rental car and were concerned the Alamo rental site would be closed before the shuttle got us there. It closed at 1:00 a.m., and we got there about 15 minutes before that. We picked up our car, an economy model, and also decided to pay extra to rent a GPS unit for the week. That was a good decision. It proved invaluable.

We found our hotel without much difficulty and tried to enter the room quietly so as not to wake everyone up. Eliza did greet us and asked if I wanted my birthday surprise right then. The previous day had been my 61st birthday. I said we could wait until morning when everyone else would be up, but she couldn’t wait. She then announced that she was pregnant. She and Paul are expecting their third child on January 7. That was a wonderful birthday surprise.

Wednesday, July 21
Texas

While the boys were still sleeping, Eliza drove Paul his class. Aaron, who by now was in the middle of the queen bed Paul and Eliza had slept in, woke up first and appeared completely bewildered. Here he was in a strange place with strange people in the bed next to him and no parents anywhere in site. He could see Peter sleeping over on the couch across the room. He kept stealing glances my way. He never did fuss or panic but looked, well, bewildered. Peter, on the other hand, was ecstatic when he woke up. He was so happy to have Grandma and Grandpa here finally.

Our room was on the fourth floor of the building and had a little balcony that looked out toward downtown. Planes approaching Hobby airport were easy to watch from the balcony. They had been watching the planes the night before, and Peter kept asking whenever there was a Southwest plane if Grandma and Grandpa were on it.

After Eliza returned from taking Paul, we all went down to breakfast. They offered a nice spread with lots of choices. We learned that Peter has become a picky eater, but Aaron will pretty much devour anything he can fit into his mouth. We were amused that the waffle maker produced waffles in the shape of Texas.

With Claudia not feeling well, we had a low-key day. She rested much of the day. Eliza and I took the boys and went shopping first at Sam's Club and then at Kroger for food for the week. Our room had a stove top (but no oven), microwave, refrigerator, small sink, and very limited counter space, so we could deal with simple meals. Both the Sam's Club and Kroger were conveniently nearby.

In the late afternoon Eliza, Peter, Aaron, and I went to pick Paul up from his class. We then went to Chuck-E-Cheese to eat and play. We were there several hours. As we walked out to the parking lot, I had the first of several instances of my glasses fogging up. (Actually the second; the first occurred when we stepped out of the airport when we first arrived in Houston at something after midnight.)

We drove back to the Alamo car rental place near the Hobby airport to sign Paul up as an additional driver on the rental car so he could take the smaller car to his class each day and leave us with their larger vehicle (which holds five of the six of us here).

Wednesday evening I finally made phone contact with Rich and Amy Hogan. We are planning to attend church with them on Sunday, and Amy invited us to Sunday dinner afterward. While talking with Amy, she told us about the outdoor theater at a place called Miller Outdoor Theater, which I then looked up online.

A word about being online. Just before we all arrived, severe electrical storms had knocked out the hotel's telephone system, fried some of the DVD players, and completely interrupted wireless Internet service. People came into our unit at least twice checking on our phones (as if we would ever use them, since we all have cell phones). Our DVD player happened to work but only in black-and-white. No color. Our Internet service was spotty and easily interrupted.


Thursday, July 22
Texas

Claudia continues to feel sick. In the afternoon I took her to an emergency room at the Woman's Hospital of Texas to make sure she did not have a strep infection, such as was running through Michael and Shauna's family the previous week. She had a headache, sore throat, sore ears, and such. The doctor determined there was no strep but did prescribe an antibiotic just to be sure. Eliza and I went and filled the prescription at the Kroger's pharmacy.

Friday, July 23
Texas

Based on Amy Hogan's tip, this morning Eliza and I took Peter and Aaron to the Miller Outdoor Theater in Hermann Park to see a stage performance of "Jack and the Beanstalk." It was a bit of a musical, and the characters engaged the audience at various points. The theater was near the entrance to the Houston Zoo. After the little play I paid for the $3-per-person tickets for us to take a train ride around the park. We judged it was about four or five times longer than the little train ride around Salt Lake's Hogle Zoo.

Claudia had stayed in the hotel to rest. It occurred to me that she is actually getting far better, more extensive rest here than she would have back at home. Plus, there was the added benefit for her of not experiencing the oppressive humidity and heat outside.

Paul, Eliza, Peter, Aaron, and I enjoyed an evening at the ballpark watching the Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros. There were fireworks after, so it was kind of like being in Utah to celebrate Pioneer Day. They were more impressive than what we would have seen this evening at Mueller Park Junior High had we been in Bountiful for Handcart Days.

Peter and Aaron are veteran game attenders, having attended several home games of the Atlanta Braves. Now they've been to one in Houston. And they did great. It's darling hearing them sing "Take me out to the ballgame . . ."

In Texas, after singing "Take me out to the ballgame" at the seventh-inning stretch, they also sing "Deep in the heart of Texas," the one that goes:

The stars at night are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The prairie sky is wide and high
Deep in the heart of Texas.

And they sing all the verses. You have to love it.

The waffle maker in the hotel's breakfast room also makes Texas-shaped waffles, just as Eliza reported after their visit to Houston in May.

That reminds me of what a wife of a new mission president told me last month at the mission presidents' seminar. They were from Texas. She said something to the effect, "You don't really need to ask people where they are from. If they're from Texas, they'll tell you soon enough. And if they're not, you don't want to embarrass them."

Saturday, July 24
Texas

Paul and Eliza went to the temple this morning while we watched Peter and Aaron. Claudia and I get to the temple several times a month in Bountiful. The Atlanta Georgia Temple closed for major renovation shortly after Paul and Eliza moved there, so they get to a temple rarely.

Late in the afternoon we drove to the Downtown Aquarium and spent the evening seeing the fish and sharks and white Bengal tigers and such stuff. We rode the merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, and little train that went around the property. A nice evening. Claudia was feeling better and went with us. It was her first outing here, except for the trip to the hospital the other afternoon.

We watched a DVD movie back in our room after the boys went to sleep. Invictus was the story of Nelson Mandella's election as president of South Africa and his support of the nation's rugby team as it helped draw the country together by winning the 1995 rugby world cup.

Sunday, July 25
Texas

This morning we drove north to Spring, which is where the Houston Texas Temple is located, to attend church with our dear friends, Rich and Amy Hogan. Five of their six children are now married, and they have three grandchildren. Seventeen-year-old Cami still lives at home. We calculated we last visited in their home 15 years ago, in the spring of 1995, when we were driving across the southern tier of states on our way to see Rachael graduate from Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina. Eliza was 12 years old at the time.
Church meetings were good. Laurie Harper Cole, the married daughter of Bruce and Jean Harper, also lives in the same ward. She and her family came in just as the meeting was starting and sat in the row just in front of us. Laurie really did a double take when she glanced back and saw us sitting there. We had a chance to visit briefly after sacrament meeting.

After church we drove by the temple and then to the Hogans' home for a delicious Sunday dinner that Amy prepared. We then visited for several hours and left around 8:00 p.m. to drive back to our hotel. It was a wonderful sabbath day. And Claudia was feeling much better today.

A dramatic thunderstorm moved through the area after we were back in our room.

Monday, July 26
Texas, New Mexico, Utah

We awoke early, after a fitful night wondering if we would hear the alarm and get up soon enough to get back to the airport. We got up about 6:30 (5:30 by the time we are used to), packed, said good-bye to Paul, and went downstairs to eat a final breakfast with Eliza, Peter, and Aaron. Peter particularly was sad that we had to be leaving. By now it was nearly 8:00, so we said our last good-byes, stopped to fill our rental car with gas, and then turned it in. A shuttle took us over to the airport. We stood in a long line to get through the security checkpoint, and then waited at our gate, where we boarded our plane.

I talked on the phone with Eliza, and she said she had asked the boys what was their favorite part of the whole week in Houston. They answered, "Grandma and Grandpa."

The flight left on time at 9:35 a.m. We flew to Albuquerque but stayed on the same plane while some passengers got off and new ones came on before we headed on home to Salt Lake City. We touched down in Salt Lake about 15 minutes early. Shauna, Andrew, Ethan, Marta, and Hyrum came to pick us up and drove us home to Bountiful.

It had been a good week. I talked on the phone with Eliza again to let her know we had made it safely home. She said they boys had been playing on the bed where we had slept, and Peter sweetly said, "It smells like Grandpa."

Paul's final day of his compounding class was Tuesday, after which they were hitting the road and heading on home to Atlanta.