TEN four! TEN four! In the air tonight....

Due to internet problems last night day TEN is delayed. And so was our flight... But lets keep it in chronological order.

Day TEN starts out as rehearsed before: The whole wake-up-get-packed-cleaning-have-breakfast-shower-pack-rest-procedure in less than THREE hours! Well done, Teenagers! Its another hot day in Texas, our travel day to our next destination: Tucson, Arizona. My friend drives us to the airport, weather is changing a bit, clouds in the sky over Houston, which we never visited once. You can only put SO MUCH into one trip, this time friendship and homebound things are more important than sightseeing cities.

Heartbraking goodbye with the dogs and later on with my friend at the airport, it was a very special time we spent together. And its not easy to host a mother with Three Teenagers just like that.

To explain what happens now, I have to make a little excursion. When ME booked this entire trip, convenience was top subject. Me and The Three Teenagers travelled before and there was always something going wrong, sometimes because of not enough information, sometimes by accident, sometimes out of simple stupidity. So this trip was meticuosly plannend with nice departure times late afternoon, enough lay over times for connection flights, not too late arrival times.

ME approching happily the front desk of Frontier, our next carrier, a small one as I assume by the low number of desks here at Houston Airport, whose name George Bush Intercontinental Airport - to be honest - does not sund too reassuring. But then...Frontdesk clerk of frontier looks at my bookings and says "As a matter of fact your connecting flight from Denver to Tucson was cancelled, we booked you on the next flight". Which is fine. I learned, that small airlines do that to save fuel, when they have not enough bookings on one flight. Economical, right? Okay. Then the frontdes clerk from frontier says "And we took you off your original flight from Houston to Denver". Without asking ME. And they sold my places on the earlier flight. They are gone. Now, if everything goes okay, there's nothing to be worried about. But outside water and hell are coming down. The arrival/departure boards of all airlines are already going nuts with all those delays and pile up. When this tornado/thunderstorm has passed George Bush Airport, there is one hell of a line of waiting airplanes. No way we will make that last flight out of Denver to Tucson.

Its tuesday afternoon, one look at my watch tells me, that Zurich offices are closed. I call my travel agent anyhow and leave a complaint, they must have gotten the notification about that later flight and never told me. Or asked me if its okay.

Then I call customer relationship (CR, wonderful) of frontier. Very slowly I explain my situation and that I want right now a promise to get a hotel room for free n Denver. The startled guy on the phone needs some backs-and-forts, but then he gives his okay, just in case.

Now ME and The Three Teenagers have almost four hours to kill on George Bush Intercontinental Airport. If you ever plan on a lay over, do it here, there is plenty of things to do. Like a long train ride from one terminal to the other, lots of shops, restaurants, attractions.

The Three Teenagers have to follow me into a book store and have to pick out one english book. Their selection is typical. No3 chooses one, where Zach Efron is on the cover, bestseller which was turned into that movie. SHE picks "Patty Jane's House of Curl" by Lorna Landvik and ME can't wait 'til SHE finished it so I can read it. ME very busy though reading the latest John Irving Novel, the longest he'd ever wrote, they say. And the most erotically too... The tattoo on the cover draw ME to it, browsing through a book store in Chicago O'Hare Airport. No, ME haven't got a tattoo...not yet.

HE picked "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4" by Sue Townsend. Only because its similar to one of his favorite books. Packed with our new items we search for food. Panda Express turns out to be one of the Three Teenagers favorite throughout the trip, nice asian dishes.

We are back in time at our gate for the official departure time but sure enough that flight is late. No way we will make the connection. The frontier plane though is nice, pretty with those animal pictures on the tailwing and lots of soce inside, really, there is much more space than in the swiss planes.

To make a long story short: We get to Tucson alright, one hour late for our connecting flight. ME have to explain the whole story again at frontier CR-desk, but after only 30 minutes ME and The Three Teenagers have a hotel. When you ask No3 which was the best bed on our trip No3 points out the ones at Red Lion, the hotel we were shuttled to from Denver airport. The reason is simple: Apart from that the bed which really was great was, that each one of us got to sleep alone, ME and The Three Teenagers had two rooms and each one their own bed. Luxury!

On the way to the hotel ME and Three Three Teenagers got into a conversation with the shuttlebus driver. And because ME being light hearted because its nice when you don't have to cuddle up at the airport for seven hours with The Three Teenagers, I told the guy, that now only a pizza could top the whole day. Sure enough driver calls hotel and preorders pizza for us which ME and The Three Teenagers can take to our rooms. What a service!

ME taking advantage of the cooler air in Denver and spent some time alone outside . TEN Days so far, nobody got hurt, evrythings fine. ME being pretty happy right now.....