Seattle to Houston, Thursday 4-April

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I’ve been thinking for quite a while about trying to see the 2024 total solar eclipse. I do have cousins in Ohio and Indiana in or near the path of totality, but it occurred to me that I also have a cousin in Texas whom I haven’t seen for several years. The fact that it could be likely that the chances of good weather seemed good, I asked the kids if they were interested. Hearing “Yes” all around, a plan started to form.

People have heard me use the term “my cousin” a lot, and almost always that means someone on my dad’s side. However, the cousin in Houston is on my mom’s side. When she lived in Seattle, Kellen and Tynor really enjoyed spending time with her. Not only that, but Noël was her roommate, which is how we all met her. Tynor has seen her a couple of times since she left Seattle but this is the first time for the rest of us in many years, as well as the first time meeting her husband and baby.

The plan that formed for the trip was to stay in Houston for a few days and then go to San Antonio, which is in the path of totality. As it stands now, chances are that there will be cloud cover, so we’ll see if the forecast changes as the eclipse grows near.

This first day was a travel day, so we met up at the airport in the morning. Since we flew Southwest, we had our positions in the boarding line. Melody and Kellen were the first people in the B group, while the rest of us were at the end of the A group. We were able to get a whole row together on the flight to Denver, where we would have a layover.

There was plenty of time in Denver to grab lunch. After that, on to the next flight which would take us to Houston. While it was cloudy for most of the first flight, we got good views on the second one.

We landed in Houston, got our bags, and (after a bit of confusion with being directed to multiple kiosks) got our rental cars. Keys in hand, we went to the store to pick up groceries and dinner on the way to our rental house. Even though we landed early, figuring out the cars got us on the road later than we hoped, so by the time we got to the store, we had less than 10 minutes to shop. We divided up to get different things, got into the checkout line when it was announced that the store would close in two minutes, and made it to the house.

Our rental was pretty nice, with plenty of room to mingle around. Oddly, there weren't many chairs around the table, and most of the stools at the kitchen island were missing crossbars (which made them look pretty rickety). We ended up eating in the living room around the coffee table, which worked out fine. Well, fine considering that we could only find three forks. We also had trouble getting all of our devices onto the WiFi network, but it eventually worked out.

Being pretty spent after the long day of travel, we all went to sleep not too far off of our normal time, which meant a bit early, considering the time change.