After an 11 hour flight, Andy foolishly tells the truth to machine prompted American border controls regarding the flight we were on, AA81, and has a 1.5 hour wait in a customs queue for his sins. I blindly agree to being on flight BA193 at the electronic customs and get let through without queuing. After laughing my way through to baggage reclaim, I am stuck for the 1.5 hours realising Andy has the car rental and hotel information – smugness quickly wiped off my face and replaced with egg!
We get to our Super 8 Motel room, unpack and follow the gospel TripAdvisor to ‘Hard Eight Bar B Q’ – it screams Texas as smoke clogs your eyeballs and meat aromas tickle your nostrils, and this is after seeing long haired men with beards to match fall out of their cars / trucks that resemble WWII tanks, scratch their crotch, hobble in and prop themselves up on the bar. After (metaphorically I hasten to add!) we drool over the open pit of meat in admiration, we undecidedly go for 1lb of beef brisket, ribs and sausage each. I’d like to share a joke that the ‘hospitality’ kindly told us and tickled me like a schoolgirl, ‘Did you hear of the guy who had the whole left side of him removed? … *dramatic pause while Andy and I stare in dumbfoundment* … “He was an alright guy but there was nothing left of him” . ALL RIGHT guy, NOTHING LEFT of him, geddit?
Retiring back to the Super 8 Motel room we look at the reflectivity radar for storm activity and quickly notice we are in the middle of a severe storm warning. 15 minutes later we (I!!) are watching storm chasing tutorial youtube clips on TV when wind suddenly thumps into the window proceeded by sideways rain. We head to the window and lightening lights up the night sky followed by the unmistakable roar of thunder. In excitement I get out my newly acquired Go Pro selfie stick to get footage from out the window, the mosquito protection doesn’t open and I can’t get the camera out, rookie mistake number one. If I had succeeded, I’d have created a lovely electrical field for the lightening to zap my arm off, rookie mistake number 2 avoided!