Wednesday, July 8, 2014

0816, Wed, 071914. Rocklin, CA.

Well, we made it. Our day started out in London, England with the usual morning and breakfast. There were a handful of us going to Sacramento. We boarded the bus for the airport and were entertained by a great bus driver with an accent that was a cross between British and Asian. He was a real kick pointing out the sights and cracking jokes along the route.
We were dropped off at the airport four hours early since who knew how long it would take to get through the tightened security. Sue and I split up from the group as they had other things to attend to, a story in itself. Oh, there is always that one couple. They needed to declare the VAT tax ( a refund if you have the right paper work). They had the papers, no they didn't, some of the stuff was from Ireland, should have done the work there. They just couldn't get it together. Mick gave us the OK to head off on our own. We whizzed through with no problem other than not getting our connecting ticket in Philladelphia. No problem, we will get it there.
After a long long flight (nine hours) across the pond we headed to customs and immigration with the rest of the crowd. Two hours to get through, whew what a crowd. No problems in customs and off to get our ticket but now we were real close to missing our connection. The rest of the group, lead by Micki, had tickets so we were on our own. We raced downstairs, frantically looking for the ticket area, got the tickets by a slow moving young man, then back through security, to board as the last people were getting on the plane. We could see Mick and the gang here and there as we leap frogged through the bureaucracy. They were lead off from security as we stayed in the long line. We thought we were going to be late and they had gotten a short cut. Well, we made it to loading with them right behind us, but Mick couldn't come aboard. She had raced on from security leaving her bag for the group to pick up but that doesn't work out well. She had left her computer in her bag and had a couple of mini bottles of wine from the last flight. She showed up only to have the door shut in her face.
We were off, or so we thought. We sat on the runway for over two hours. The pilot was waiting for weather. A reroute wouldn't work because he didn't have enough fuel. The engines would start and then they would stop. Thank goodness there is a law now about holding passengers hostage on the tarmac. The pilot finally turned the plane around and took us back for a break and a refuel. We got off the plane only to find we couldn't get back on until they were ready to let us on. One poor old man had left his wife aboard while he went to get something to eat. They wouldn't let him back on board. Luckily we thought to bring our ticket with us as that was another problem, people leaving their stuff aboard with the ticket. What a mess.
We made it to Sac. three hours late, stiff and sore from all the sitting in those miserable seats on planes designed for a six foot tall person. The final leg of the trip went fine, Ryan had left the truck with great instructions of where it was, we found it and made our short trip to our house. Nice to be home once again….more later..

Roger and Sue Lloyd
lloyds@jps.net

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