I know people have crazy stories of getting to the airport late or cars breaking down or whatever, but we were really lucky that the whole "morning of" process went really smooth. We got to the airport in plenty of time, got a great parking spot and got our boarding passes no problem. We were even pleasantly surprised that the airline didn't charge us any baggage claim fees because Billy was a disabled veteran. PERK!
First flight was fine..... until we descended into Houston. The captain came on the speakers and warned us that it was going to be a little bumpy because there were storms all around. He wasn't kidding. It was very bumpy. We survived though - no worse for wear. Gabe was a little green, but we were all okay. We had a short layover in Houston, so we headed off to find our gate before grabbing lunch. Houston airport is much bigger than we realized, so it took us several moving sidewalks and a subway-type train to get to where we needed to be. We found the gate without any major problems and grabbed lunch.
20 minutes before our flight, I sat down at our gate while Billy grabbed some snacks for the plane. It took me a few moments to realize it, but not a single other person was at the gate...... empty flight? Then I realized that the gate said that the flight was going to San Fransisco. "No, that's not us." I wandered over to the big digital flight board to see what the deal was. Without any notice, they had changed the gate that our flight was leaving from. I hollered at Billy and he clarified with someone at the airport. Yup, gate change - and it might as well have been on the other side of the planet from where we were. We had 15 minutes until our flight left at that point.
We hightailed it out of there as quickly as possible. Several more moving sidewalks, another ride on the subway-type train, a few more moving sidewalks and we could see the sign pointing towards where our gate was..... at the far end of the airport. We were quite literally that family running through the airport like maniacs. I still am not sure how, but we made it.
At that point all those Houston storms had settled near the airport. The captain warned us that the seatbelt lights would be on the entire flight because it was going to be a rough one. Great. This was our longest leg of the trip. Several hours in the air. Shouldn't the air be smooth and lovely? Well, it's not. I still can't figure that part out, but it was like driving down a gravel road full of potholes. It was terrible and I was miserable. Going up and coming back down were the worst parts. Once we were cruising above the clouds, it wasn't so bad. Oh gosh the descent into Anaheim though. Ugh. That was the worst. Bumpiest ride of my life and then I swear we bounced a couple times when we landed. Alyssa had her hands up saying, "Weeeee!", Brayden had a concerned look on his face but was quiet, while Gabe and I were green and clenching our barf bags. I wanted to kiss the ground when we landed.
All of that quickly melted away though as we walked through the airport. We were finally in California. Over a year and a half of planning and we were looking out into beautiful, sunny, smoggy California!!
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