Monday, July 05, 2004

Only me....

Well, I should be well on my way to South Africa right now, at least somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. That, my dears, is not the case. Let me back up a bit and tell you about my week.

As most of you know, Al and I drove out of Los Angeles last Saturday heading for Phoenix to spend some quality time in the bistering heat with Kev and Amy. That being done, tearful goodbyes over, I headed out alone on the open road towards Texas early Monday. I stayed in a lovely motel in the quiet metropolis of Van Horn (which consists of a strip of motels and a Mexican food restaurant that is evidently a frequent haunt of John Madden's) all situated in the lovely desert an hour and a half on the east side of El Paso. (As a side note, I had to Frogger my way across a two lane highway to arrive at the lovely establishment where I ate my evening meal.) I left town at 7 am the next morning, to witness my first Texas sunrise in nearly 10 years. There's something to be said about coming home, but that's another story for another day.


West Texas sunrise

I spent the next three days in New Braunfels catching up with my oldest and dearest friend Julie (we've known each other since 3rd grade), and San Antonio with my mom and sister Cheyenne. Friday afternoon, I headed out towards Fort Worth (finally!!). For some reason the anticipation was really getting to me. I always swore I'd never come back here, but I couldn't help feel a sense of relief as I exited the highway. Whether that was due to the relief of finally being at a destination, or something deeper, I'll have to examine later.

SO the plan was to unpack my poor little car and hand the keys over to my sister, unpack all of my boxes into their proper locations in my new room at my father's house, and repack for South Africa... all in 36 hours. I did it- I got all my stuff unpacked, handed the keys over to a 16-year-old that was ready to burst with excitement because she finally had a car, and even got all of my errands run for all of my pre-departure stuff. Yes, since Sunday was the 4th, I spent all day Saturday getting prepared for my 3 am departure on Monday morning - traveler's cheques, photocopies of tickets and passports, last minute shopping, packing.. all was done by 9 pm. Perfect!! I spent the 4th doing some last minute packing, reading and hanging out with my fam...

Then disaster struck around 8pm. I was gettng all of my bags together and to the entry way so they would be ready to go at 2:30 am when we had to leave the house. I pulled my tickets out, and my photocopies of my passport... but NO PASSPORT. In my excitement, I had left my passport on the glass at Kinko's. Stupid stupid stupid stupid. That's all that went through my head for hours, since I happened to go to the only non-24 hour Kinko's in Fort Worth, Texas. Plus, since it was a holiday, they closed at 6pm, 2 hours earlier. After the realization of what I had done sank in, I just sat in the Kinko's parking lot and cried. I feared the worst -- that no one turned my passport in, and I would have to cancel my trip. I was devastated and dreading the phone call to Jamie. Thank god it was 4am where he was and I got voice mail. I definitely couldn't have handled his misery on top of my own. I went home, cried some more, then came to the sudden conclusion that there wasn't a damn thing I could do that night (other than calling Kinko's corporate trying to find a manager's phone number.. oh, wait! I did that!), so I quit my snivelling, watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and went to bed.

As usual, things have worked out ok... just not exactly as I had planned. My worst fears were never realized. I got to Kinko's at 7 am this morning (yeop, missed my flight), they did have my passport, and I was able to reschedule my flight for tomorrow. As for today, I'm not leaving the house. I'm afraid I'll lose my head. All my luggage and documentation is staying right where it is near the front door. My passport is now glued to my left hand, where it will stay for eternity. It might make a few things difficult as I am left handed, but whatever...

Stay tuned, I'm sure I'll do something else relatively stupid soon and I'll have to brag to someone. :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sure sounds like your gunna have a WILD trip babe!... Good luck of course! - alfonse