WOW

WOW. I don't even know where to start. It's been so long since I posted! What a weekend.....
The Zoe Conference was absolutely awesome. It was so refreshing to just spend time in prayer, praise and worship and really refocus my attention on what is important in this life. The singing was great, Mike Cope and Jeff Walling were awesome.. and it was SO good to see friends that I haven't seen in a long time.

HOWEVER.. getting to Nashville was the hard part. I am telling you, this was one of the worst travel experiences I have ever had. And I've been a lot of places! The plan was to fly out of DFW to Little Rock, Arkansas at 7:10AM.. arrive at 8:10AM, rent a car and be on my way to Memphis to pick up Julie. So, I get to Little Rock and proceed to rent the car that I had reserved 2 weeks in advance. I was all ready to go when he says, I'm sorry - "I can't rent you this car because the debit card is not in your name." (It just had James Mayo on it, not me) I told him I thought that I was an authorized user, so he calls the bank and they say I am NOT an authorized user. Nice. So.. I ask if I can just give them the money in cash. Nope. Okay - from there I ask the other NINE rental car places if I can rent with either my debit card or cash. All of them say no. I'm sure. I don't understand the problem here. I have money - you have a car. AHH! At this point, I try calling James to see if he has any bright ideas. The cell phone is shut off b/c the bill didn't get there on time. What next??? At this point it is about 10:30. I could have already been in Memphis. I call Sprint to pay the bill and they said they would have my phone turned back on in the stellar time of 4 hours.

I go BACK to Enterprise where I started and literally begged them to find a way for me to rent a car. They tell me if I can give them a $300 cash deposit and a copy of my boarding pass for the flight home, then I can do it. Great. I go to the ATM and withdraw the money. I go to the Southwest ticket counter where they can only print out an itenerary (which I already had). You can't get a boarding pass unless you are 24 hours away from your departure time. I trek back to the nazi's at Enterprise where, shocker, they won't accept an itenerary - it HAS to be the actual boarding pass. I tell them I can't get that because I'm not returning in less than 24 hours. He says he's sorry. He's about to think sorry.

I then begin to freak out. I can't call anyone b/c the phone doesn't work.. I can't leave the airport. I ask the man behind the counter what in the world I am supposed to do and he just says, "Taxi?"

Right. Take a taxi 2 hours to Memphis. Just to humor myself, I go and ask how much that would cost and he said $300. No thanks. I go to a bench and just sit down and cry. How the heck am I going to get out of here? The taxi man came and found me and said he could take me to the Greyhound bus station for $17 and from there I could take the 1:00 bus to Memphis for about $25. What other option do I have?

I get to the bus station. To say that I was in the "hood" is a nice way of putting it. I was the only white person (I am not racist, I promise) and, more importantly, the only girl. I was immediately approached by this scary man that kept saying, "Hey beautiful.. smile." He followed me around everywhere. I bought my ticket and tried to ignore everyone around me. As I am waiting, I am offered cocaine twice, and had a really nice invitation to join a man in his car. A police officer came in with 2 parolees (sp?) that would be traveling on my bus. This is when my brain kicks into gear and I think - I can use the pay phone!!! I don't know why I didn't think of this in the airport. I guess I was just too flustered.

I call my friend Julie - I was totally crying and freaking out. She said, "Call me back in 10 minutes and I will have you a ride." This is where I am SO extremely thankful to be a part of the "church family." Julie and her husband Charles lived in Little Rock before they moved to Memphis. Within 15 minutes, the youth minister of their old church showed up with a car that belongs to another member of their church. They let a perfect stranger take their car to Memphis!! It turns out that the lady who's car I borrowed was already in Nashville at the conference. I could NOT believe it. SO... finally at 1:30PM, I am was my way.

Yikes. Talk about a travel experience. I'll post more about the weekend with some pictures later... just thought I should go ahead and record that story!