Well we are now three for three when it comes to having snow to worry about as we begin a cruise! If you have read about our previous two trips you will remember that our Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam began with weather warnings for snow...in October of 2017. Then in April, 2018 we barely made it out of Minnesota for our Panama Canal cruise before the largest snowfall of the season hit.
After spending the night at #2 son's house, we woke up to snow...again. This time we thought it would just be a little light dusting, but we were wrong. It continued throughout the morning.
We enjoyed some time with our three brown-eyed grand kids and a late breakfast of the most delicious egg bake that my son made. For being a kid whose cooking was more on the order of a bologna sandwich, he has turned into quite a chef!
Our plan was to leave our car with the #3 son who has a little more room to park an additional vehicle. We drove the 5 minutes to his house and had a short time to visit with our blue-eyed grand kids before deciding we should get an earlier start to our drive to the Minneapolis airport (MSP). A good call. The roads were very slick and the closer we got to the airport, the more accidents and emergency vehicles we saw. Traffic slowed to a crawl so my son switched routes to a less traveled road and got us there safely. I am beginning to think the only way to avoid snow here is to travel in June, July or August.
The weather was only one concern for getting to our flight on time. With the government shutdown, we knew the lines for TSA security checks could be much longer. The shutdown had just ended the day before so not sure if that made a difference but we had no wait at all. It took us longer to figure out the self-serve bag check kiosk than it did to get through the security line. (I attribute that to senior citizen mentality.) We got to our gate with plenty of time and sat watching plane after plane being de-iced.
The first leg of our flight to Atlanta was overbooked and the gate agent was offering a $200 gift certificate to 4 people who would take a later flight (NOT an option we even considered.) I had chosen our seats for the flight and was feeling good that we were in row 15...close to the front of the plane.
 |
| Crowded gate area. |
When we boarded I discovered that row 15 has NO window! (Should have checked Seat Guru.) Not a huge deal...but disappointing. I had a new GoPro camera and was looking forward to videoing our takeoff!
Our flight was on time and we landed in Atlanta within just a few minutes of our traveling companions, Kent & Laurel, who were coming from St. Louis. Our friendship goes back many years...actually decades...to when Kent and Bob were roommates in college AND Laurel and I were roommates. We have traveled together multiple times and were excited to be sharing another adventure with them.
We stopped and grabbed sandwiches at Chik-Fil-A and met up at the gate for our international flight to Santiago. The 3-hour wait went by fairly quickly as we chatted and got caught up after not seeing each other for over a year.
 |
| You can tell this is before our nearly 10 hours flight...we are alert and smiling! |
 |
| How in the world does a plane stay in the air with this many people?! |
 |
| Good bye Atlanta. |
By midnight we had been given warm, wet towels followed by dinner. Bob and I both chose the Asian chicken salad from the other options of chicken or pasta. It had been a very long time since I had a meal served on a flight and I was surprised at how much food we had received.
After eating, I took a melatonin and some sleeping pills (which I discovered were really just the same ingredient as Benadryl.) I covered up with the provided (but thin) blanket, donned my eye mask and a pair of ear plugs and attempted to get comfortable enough to sleep. I could tell it was going to be a long night...
No comments:
Post a Comment