Checked In @ the IAH Marriott

I’m literally swaying … a form of dock rock that follows a long flight … not to mention being sleep deprived. After all, it’s 6:36a in Turkey now and that means that we’ve been on the go for 25½ hours. Time to get some shuteye. But first, I need to relax a bit, and I do want to stay up until at least 10:00p. So I am going to add the final bits to for today’s footprints before I crash.

We did make up a bit of the delay and TK33 landed at 7:18p Houston time … just 18 minutes behind the ETA instead of 29 minutes. We made our way to immigration … or rather, to the Global Entry kiosks. Technology has been improved since the last time we came into the USA through IAH. Instead of scanning our passports, we just needed to take photo of ourselves, which the system verified as being us and spit out the receipts we then handed to the agent at a special GOES kiosk. We were done in a jiffy … always a pleasure.

If only we were able to retrieve our checked bags as quickly. It took at least ½ hour for our bags to show up on the carousel. Turns out that there was no special treatment for BizClass luggage, even though they were tagged for priority handling.

Bags in tow, we walked through the customs area and out to the terminal proper, where we took an elevator down to the subway level. Unfortunately, luggage carts are not allowed on the train, so we had to hoof it 2500 feet — or nearly ½-mile— from Terminal D/E to the Marriott IAH. No matter, we appreciated the chance to stretch our legs.

We’re in room 1180 this time … on the first floor in the south tower … the last non-connecting room that was available. The room is no different from the north tower rooms we’ve been assigned during previous stays.

And that’s it. We’re back in the USA. It feels nice to be back home … almost. Keeping fingers crossed that our flights go as per the latest schedule tomorrow. The National Weather Service is calling for a Winter Weather Advisory for Colorado starting tomorrow at 5:00p … through 11:00a on 1 January. Sure hope we beat the storm.Read more