Our 27 hour day

Want three extra hours? Fly across three time zones. That's what we did today. We (Chris, Gracie, and I) jumped in the car at 3:40am. We were going through security an hour later. Our flight to Houston (the Continental hub) took about 2 1/2 hours. As we began the descent into Houston, we saw this rainbow outside our window:

I have to say I was impressed with Houston's airport. It was pretty neat. We were there for a little over an hour as our connection was delayed arriving because of Hurricane Dolly stirring up some weather. From Houston, it was just over two hours to Phoenix. I watched "Drillbit Taylor" and I have to say it was mildly funny, but I'm glad I never paid to watch it.

When we arrived in Phoenix, we got our two checked bags and schlepped them out to the shuttle to the rental car terminal. We had reservations with Hertz. This is where our trip hit a little snag. Apparently, Hertz wasn't too keen on honoring reservations on time. It took waaaay too long for us and everyone else there to get our cars. Somebody must have called Hertz management b/c we ended up talking with a regional manager. They'll credit us back some money as a courtesy.

We finally got our car, a Mazda 6, which is actually fairly nice, and drove up to a shopping area for a lunch and a little walking around. We went into http://www.littlepiggy.com/ and I got Gracie the funniest little board book - about fashion. She went nuts for it. She's getting to be such a girly girl.

After we left Phoenix, we rapidly climbed over 2000 feet in elevation on the way to Sedona (which is over 4000 feet above sea level). It's really interesting to see the terrain out here as it is so radically different than NC. The red rocks are beautiful and we are looking forward to seeing more of the area up close. Here are some pictures we took driving in to town and then at our hotel:

My training/workshop starts tomorrow morning/ I'm glad I still have my extra three hours!