My flight home

We started out Monday morning pretty well. We actually left 30 minutes early. My sister, Jessie, my brother, Brad, and I were going to meet my little sister, Edna, and her new husband, Joe, in Elizabeth City for lunch at a Japanese restaurant. We left at 9:30 am (EST). We were able to make a quick stop to see my second mom, Ginnie Cline. Then off for food. The food was awesome by the way! I ate the whole meal with chopsticks & even tried veggie sushi.

After lunch, we started the journey to Raleigh, roughly a 3 hour drive. We stopped at one of the houses we grew up in to show Brad. We made good time & arrived at the airport at 3:30. We got a little turned around because the airport did not have very good signs, but we made it. Brad & I both checked in quickly & got thru security quickly.

My flight was boarding first, so I planned on getting the car from long term parking & picking Brad up. Once on my plane, the captain announced that they couldn't get the door to lock. They could shut it, but not lock it. Minor detail! The captain was very good at keeping us informed & in good spirits. They had to wait for blue prints to be faxed, then the blue prints were unclear because they were faxed, then the problem must be so far into the door because they couldn't see it. Finally, after 1 1/2 hours, they let us off the plane. Of course, by this time, Brad had taken off.

They decided to have us board another plane. We just had to wait for it to get there. Praise God, I had my laptop & internet access. That passed the time. I was able to catch Eric before he left his parents, so he could pick Brad up from the airport.

We got on our second airplane & they closed the door. The captain then announces that due to the bad weather, we would have to take a longer route. We did not have the fuel for this route, so we had to wait for the fuel truck! You could sense the pilot's frustration at this point. Everyone on board laughed at the irony of it. Finally, we began to taxi. Only to be told we would have to wait for 10 minutes because of the back log at Ohare. Of course!

We took off around 8:40 (over 3 1/2 hour delay). The flight was 2 1/2 hours (almost a hour longer). Finally at 10 pm, we landed. It took me 1 hour to get to my car. I missed the first tram by 30 seconds & had to wait 10 minutes for the next one. Then, our shuttle driver decided to chit chat for a bit before leaving.

Long day! But the weekend was great. I thank God that this happened on the flight home & not the flight there.