It's All Canada's Fault

At 2:00 PM yesterday in Memphis it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Memphis has had great weather for the last month

When we arrived at 7:00 pm it was 45 degrees. The high for today is expected to be 45.

The change in the weather was brought about by a mass of cold air from Canada, which heralded its arrival in Memphis with severe thunderstorms, high winds, hail and tornados.

Our arrival in Houston yesterday coincided with the arrival of the storm there, we landed and they closed the airport for an hour.

Our flight to Memphis was listed as only being delayed a half hour, but when boarding time came around, what we boarded was a bus. The bus took us to the plane, which was parked out in the middle of the tarmac along with all the other planes that couldn't make it to a gate.

Steven and I call the planes that fly from Houston to Memphis toy planes, I'm 5'1" and I have to duck when I step inside, it's an exercise in claustrophobia control to travel in one of these.

We sat in those tiny seats for an hour before they told us we could take off. Then we sat on the runway for an hour and 20 minutes while we waited in another traffic jam for our turn to take off.

The flight, well, it was as one might expect. Lightning, clouds, lots of stomach-churning dips, drops and bumps, looking out the window at times it felt like Armageddon had arrived.

I'm glad I didn't know just how bad the weather in Memphis was before we left, but it was the big news story when we arrived. Landing that little plane in the high winds that were blasting through the area at the time was frightening even to Steven, who is usually immune to such worries.

We waited at the airport for over an hour to be picked up by the St. Jude shuttle. We were too late for dinner in the cafeteria, but we were mostly grateful to be on the ground.

I can't shake the feeling that we're being tested, I'm not sure for what and I have no idea how we're doing on the tests.

Tonight the temps are supposed to be in the 'teens and twenties. At least our luggage made it with us, we brought our warm jackets.

I absolutely hate the travel portion of these trips.

- Kathleen