Welcome To Honduras, I Mean Houston

Whenever we travel to and from Honduras and have to spend a night because of connections, we use Hotwire to find a hotel. It works and usually for a good price.  I could not get all the way home yesterday and had to spend the night in Houston.  Marc got on Hotwire and found me a hotel  and it worked.  The hotel was clean, secure and had a bed in it.  And not much else.  It had no restaurant inside the hotel and no restaurant or gas station anywhere close that I could see and was located on a freeway.   A mixmaster, as there were freeways criss-crossing every which direction.  Made supper a bit of a challenge.

I don't carry shampoo, etc. when I go to to the States.  I just leave it at my mom's.  It saves a lot of poundage in my suitcase. I expect those little samples in hotels.  Not last night.  No coffee pot.  No radio.  Perhaps, Marc went too much on the low end.  Maybe not.

I was exhausted, sad, and knowing I had made a bad decision about leaving this soon after the funeral.  I had two choices.  I could have a pity party or a pamper party.  I chose the latter.  There were three things I really wanted to do while spending the night in Houston by myself: take a  hot bath, a luxury not to be had in Honduras, read on my book, and get a good night's rest.  In that room, I had everything I needed to accomplish those three things.

The hot bath, and a good talk to God, began to clear my head.  Realizing I encounter unexpected things on a daily basis in Honduras, I roll with the flow and, usually, laugh about it.  Do the same thing in Houston.  I ate chocolate chip cookies in bed.  Famous Amos directly from the vending machine.  Thank goodness for the vending machine.  I then fluffed up the nice flat pillows as much as they could be fluffed up and settled in with the book.   I read about an hour before I turned off the lights at 8:30.  Mission accomplished.

I woke this morning feeling more refreshed and knowing I had been a bit on the silly side about fretting over those things yesterday. 

After having chocolate chips cookies for supper, I was more than ready for the free continental breakfast.  I had never seen a continental breakfast that consisted of nothing more than white bread and a toaster. I was a bit put out at first.  Then, in my mind, I said "welcome to Honduras, I mean Houston."  Then I laughed.  Outloud. 

I then remembered all the people in Honduras and Haiti and India and Africa and all sorts of other places that would rejoice if they only had a piece of bread today.  I toasted my bread and sat down and thanked God for that piece of bread.  I am spoiled and I was ashamed.

I got to the airport, got on my plane, finished the book, and had an uneventful flight to Honduras.  After immigration and customs, I walked into Marc's arms and he said "welcome to Honduras," and at that moment, they were the most wonderful words on earth.

Terri