Saturday, Day 1: Travel Delay Is Okay

The morning went well enough. We arose, had a good breakfast and found ourselves ready when friend James came by to drive us to the airport. And the ticketing process went quite quickly. So it was that we awaited our flight to Washington Reagan. Kids were calm, we were ready to go.

Then only 20 minutes before boarding time, the announcement. “The plane arrived in need of mechanical inspection, as it lost an engine upon descent and had low oil pressure. We’ll check it out and let you know what we need to do in just a short while.”

Sigh. I have been here before, and it seems that things always take longer to address than anticipated. Nonetheless, it is better to discover these things while on the ground, rather than in the air! We hunkered down for what promised to be at least a 90 minute delay. A “heads up” call to our friends in DC, Gene & Liz, and then we ate our sandwiches. Kids played some cards, and we took turns keeping the baby occupied. The local airport is a nice enough place to kill time, with a lack of crowds and free wifi.

Eventually, we did get shuffled to another flight, and our connection in Dallas was arranged. Not much time on the ground between flights, but enough to get to our gate, grab some food and load up. I had hoped for some coffee, but time did not permit – oh well. The sacrifices of herding the crew to another flight safely and securely.

En route, the captain indicated we had a great tailwind and would make up some time on the way into DC, and by golly, he was right! Arrived at DCA only an hour or so later than planned. As we came into the general terminal area, it was mighty good to see Gene’s smiling face. He escorted us to the baggage area, we grabbed all ten checked pieces of luggage (hey, not bad to pack 8 people into 10 bags! Kudos to my wife for that superb job). Gene got the cell phone out, called Liz, and presto, the car came around the corner. Quickly loaded up the trunk (Toyotas have a lot of trunk space for a smaller car) and had some of the family go home with Liz. Gene and a few of us hit the metro, and in a short while were in their apartment catching up and umpacking.

We then hit the nearby grocery store for a week of groceries. By the time we got back, unloaded the car (must have had 25 bags in there!), and chatted a bit it was nearly 1:00 a.m. Yawn, time to go to bed!

Gratefully, a rather predictable and uneventful day of travel. Thanks to James (for going out of his way to get us to the airport), the gal at the American counter who tried hard to get us seats on that later flight, to Trish (the AA attendant who helped us feel a bit of comfort on the plane), to the two military guys I sat between (for being so agreeable to not just my presence, but Zane’s), and certainly to Gene and Liz for their gracious hospitality.

All that could go wrong…and very little did. The adventure begins! All in all, that delay was okay. I suspect it won’t be our last…