Not in Calgary Any More

After a twelve-hour day facing customs lines, having my airplane window sprayed with orange fluorescent goo, and waiting to deplane at the gate in Dallas because of three other planes causing a "traffic jam" ahead of us, I finally did make it home last night.

I don't generally think of an overnight in Canada as international travel. Yet the change in climate, different currency, and the addition of "eh" in people's sentence served as in-your-face reminders.

At the hotel teens without coats ran outside, threw their arms up, and tried to catch snow with their tongues. They also tried to keep their eyes open without blinking as they looked up, but they reported having a complete lack of success. From inside a warm car I enjoyed watching fat flakes swirl around me, and I knew my girl would be jealous. When she was little, in her prayers she asked God for snow nightly several years running--even in Texas in July. Especially in Texas in July!

After a dinner of yummy Calgary beef and driving through a blizzard (which for me is as rare as an enthusiastic customs official), I loved deplaning into a sixty-degree evening, seeing green grass, and smelling spring in the air. Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.