Monday - Thus Far....

Good afternoon - today has been a good day.  I took the day off as my traveling housemate and some of the mission team members were scheduled to return.  It worked out that I had to make the trek to the airport to pick up my housemate, as the friend of ours who was supposed to do it, had something come up so that she would be unable to break away and go.  


I drove out to the airport - got out there earlier than necessary because I wanted to allow time in case there were traffic issues on this artery (an accident can and usually does tie up traffic for lengthy periods of time).  Well, as I was walking from the parking lot to the arriving flights terminal, I glanced at my watch and noted the time and realized that their flight from Memphis to Jackson should be taking off about that time.  The length of the flight was scheduled for about an hour while the drive time is more like 3 hours.  


When I walked into the terminal, I found the ticket counter for the airline they were flying in on and approached an agent and asked her to check that flight for me and confirm whether it was on time or what the status was.  I handed her a piece of paper with the flight number on it.  She checked and verified that it had indeed pushed back from the gate in Memphis and departed and was on time for its arrival in Jackson and told me what gate the flight would be arriving at.  Then she pointed me to where to go to meet the arriving flight.  


I walked down the concourse and found a waiting area for those meeting arriving flights.  The flight actually arrived about 15-20 minutes before its scheduled time; once the plane was on the ground and they were getting it in position to pull up to the gate and park, I got a call from one of the team members informing me that they had landed and were waiting for the okay to deplane.  I had already heard an announcement over the airport's p.a. system that that flight number had arrived, so I responded that I was at the waiting area outside security waiting for them.  


I had to wait about 10 minutes before they deplaned and made their way out of the secure area.  There were 4 - how many I was expecting to be in the traveling party.  Of course I was only picking up my housemate.  I accompanied them to baggage claim - which didn't take long - and then we made our way out to the parking lot, loaded the baggage in my car and headed for home. 


En route we stopped and made a trip through a drive thru to pick up lunch.  We were home before noon.  My housemate is resting now (may be asleep, I'm trying to be quiet so as not to disturb) - I laid down and took a short snooze myself.