It’s 5: 20 Wednesday morning and plane loads of bleary people with matted hair blindly stream into the concourse at Houston Intercontinental from airports along the west coast.

Just a little over three hours since lifting out of Portland I’m assimilating into Texas. There’s something comforting about the familiarity of this airport. I’ve changed planes here so many times the past two years I don’t need to look at the signs to know where I am.

I’ve always thought there was something magical about traveling through the night, appearing at sunrise thousands of miles from where I was the day before. It’s kinda like: While you slept, I morphed into someplace new.

Of course this is the life of truckers, airline crew, rock bands and their roadies, the circus. Commonplace to them. Invisible to the rest of us.

Oregonians and my compatriots in London are accustomed to full daylight by this hour on the day of the summer solstice. Houston is so much further south the sun won’t appear for another hour.

For me it’s a flight to Austin in an hour, rescuing two boxes of DVDs from overnight baggage lockup, and guesting on the radio today at 1 pm Central.

You can join me on Sherry Mills’ show “I’m Ready for My Closeup” at http://www.koop.org. I hope you will. Actress Cynthia Schiebel will be joining us in the studio!