The flight to Midland was uneventful. June and Shawn (her sister) met me at the airport that night and took me over to Shawn's boyfriend's place where I'd be spending the night. After a nice dinner and some reminiscing conversation, I was ready to hit the sack.
The drive from Midland to Floydada took about 3 hours. This is what the drive in looked like (you gotta love the big sky):
June comes from a farming family with roots in the area. The area is flat, and I understand the soil is rich. June and her aunt are looking for their old farm:
And here it is:
And this is Floydada, population four thousand or so:
The funeral took place at the grave site. It was a cool, sunny day and a strong wind blew. The funeral home set up a canopy for the 20 or so people who attended. The local Baptist minister said a few positive words, as did some of her family and friends. The whole ceremony lasted not much longer than 30 minutes.
Afterward, we retreated to a local restaurant for lunch. I had a chance to say hello to Gladys' twin brother, Glenn. The twins could not have taken more divergent paths in life. Glenn grew up with polio and later became the mayor of Amarillo and a successful businessman. Gladys was always the pretty one in the family who had more difficulties in life.
After lunch, June and her aunt dropped me off at the Lubbock airport for my flight home. Lubbock is only an hour away from Floydada and offered me a chance to get to Austin sooner than if I flew back out of Midland.
I had a couple of hours before my flight, so I ordered a sandwich and a beer from the airport bar. Sitting on my stool, I saw the horizon quickly getting darker and darker. Pretty soon, the large picture windows of the bar started shaking violently, the fire alarm sounded loudly, and the warning strobes fired off. Not know what to do, I ate my food and drank my beer while the sky choked with dust and went black. I did not, however, rush to the windows to take pictures and film videos. Even I'm not that foolish. I left that to the news stations and those who post on youtube:
Well, the powers that be shut down the Lubbock airport because of the debris from the dust storm needed to cleared off the runway. I was told I would be put on the next flight out to Austin - the following morning. Understand that it was only 6:00PM when I was told this. I had a long night ahead of me in an airport with limited facilities.
After sitting around for a couple of hours, the opportunity came up for me to take the last flight out of the airport - to Dallas. I jumped on that, figuring Dallas was closer to home than Lubbock. The plane arrived in Dallas around 10:00PM. In Dallas, I found a flight to San Antonio that left at midnight. And since San Antonio is closer to Austin than Dallas, I took that one also. Unfortunately, there wasn't a flight from San Antonio to Austin at 2:00AM, so I called Jill and asked if she'd come get me. She did - and I am forever grateful. We got back to Austin around 3:30AM. But I avoided spending a night in an airport, which no one ever wants to do.
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