No Ordinary Travels.....

On August 18, my tenth wedding anniversary, I started my journey back to Germany.  I flew Space A once more, and this time, I fully expected to have delays.  

I took a commercial flight to Seattle, Washington, and spent the night with Pete's aunt and uncle.  The next day they drove me to McChord AFB near Seattle.  This is where my space A travels actually started.  I expected to have flight delays and cancellations, but didn't expect all that happened...

This is a shot from the McChord passenger terminal.  We spent all day there, hoping to get on a flight to Charleston, to visit my good friend Nate, and his wife Ashley.  However, all of the flights to Charleston were being cancelled, so we decided to head to Dover, Delaware and hope to get out there.  

Shortly before boarding the plane, Cooper crashed.  

When we arrived in Dover, it was around 2:00 a.m., and I had previously made hotel arrangements for us, however since we arrived so late, I decided to cancel them and stay in the Passenger terminal all night.

Hangin out in the playroom.

I walked in, and immediately looked for this room:

This is where we slept on Thursday night.  I found a small piece of egg carton foam, and laid that down for Annie and Noah to sleep on.  Cooper slept in one crib, the other went to another family we got to know as we were traveling.  I slept on the floor, and it was super, SUPER cold.  

We finally made it to Charleston, and headed to my friend Nate's house for the night.  We rested, showered and had pancakes for breakfast on Saturday morning.

Noah's tooth had been lose for a few days, and I fully expected him to lose it before we traveled home, however he didn't seem all that interested in making it loose enough to fall out.  Saturday morning, I could tell it was ready, and tried to get him to let me pull it, but that only worried him.  So, I managed to get his mind off the tooth, and made him take a bite of pizza..... that did it. 

To pass the time, Annie and Cooper stole my point and shoot camera.

On the first day we were in Charleston, I had tried to catch a flight to Spangdahlem, Germany, where my car was parked.  As I was checking my bags, they dropped the number of available seats from 40 to 15, and if they put all four of us on the plane, we would be numbers 13-16... 1 person too many.  So we were kicked off that flight.  

Late in the evening we boarded a plane headed to Ramstein, Germany.  It was very hot, and there was no air moving around the plane.  We sat on the plane, not taking off, for an hour, before they decided there was something wrong with the plane, and made us get off.  

Now when you get on and off of a Space A flight, its a little more complicated than just a normal commercial flight.  You take a bus to the plane, then carry all your stuff (other than checked luggage) on the plane.  This isn't a big deal, other than I have to do it with 3 kids and all of their stuff.  

We got off that plane late, around midnight.  I had decided not to call my friend Nate to pick us up, and he had brought an air mattress for us earlier, so again, we spent the night in the terminal.

This is Annie and Noah, sharing the mattress with some of our new friends.  

This is basically where we lived for 4 days.  

A living room, a toy room and a crib room.  There were bathrooms across the hall, one working computer, no wi-fi, no restaurants, and a vending machine on the fritz.  

On the second day we were there, we waited and watched all the flights to Ramstein get cancelled, all but one:  the one we were manifested on after we were kicked off the plane the day before.  

This time they loaded us all on the bus, started driving, and turned the bus right around.  This time, at least they decided there was a problem before we got on the plane.  

Late that night, they put us all on a plane that we thought for sure would take off.  We got on, and there were two giant tanks chained to the floor.  The flight crew assured us it was safe. 

The minute we got on the plane, all three of the kids fell asleep.  Perfect, I thought.  They can sleep the whole flight.  

We took off, and watched the crew get more and more worried.  After roughly 250 flying miles, they turned our plane around.  As we landed, we hit the ground hard, and one chain from the tanks flipped up and snapped.

Yeah, safe.......

These are some of the friends we met along the way.  My kids took a liking to them.

Asleep on the plane that turned around.

Once we landed around midnight, I got off the plane and called my friend.  He gladly came and picked us up, and by that point I was pretty tired.  I was able to pull clean underwear out of our suitcase for everyone, since we couldn't take our luggage, and I washed the clothes that we had been wearing for two days at Nate's.  We left early the next morning and tried to catch a flight, yet again.  Somehow, we ended up on a plane that took us all the way to Ramstein.  

This plane was carrying tons of ammunition.

There was enough lead on this plane that I couldn't get any reception on my phone.

He looks uncomfortable, but it wasn't that bad.

Looking out the window into the dark.

Once we landed in Ramstein, we had a whole new set of problems.  

Our car was about an hour away, with no easy way to get to it.  My options were to stay in a hotel room there (which I had to fight and cry to get) for three days, while I waited for a rental car that was big enough for all of us, or to pay an over $200 charge for a shuttle ride to my car and then stay one night in that hotel.  After weighing out the cost, I chose to pay for the shuttle.

Noah did not sleep at all on the long flight, so once we landed and he sat down, he crashed.  I had to carry him almost everywhere, including to the lunch table  We ate at the Macaroni Grill (yes, the Air Force Base has one) and he only moved once...

from this position....

... to this position.

Once we finally got to Spangdahlem, we stayed in a nice, three bedroom hotel.  It was nice to finally relax a little bit, and get some much needed sleep.  I had wi-fi there, so at least I was able to let people know that I had finally made it.

There were three bedrooms, but the kids insisted on sharing this one.

The next morning I made a run to the BX to buy a new DVD player for the car, since ours was shot, and I still had 5 hours to drive.  Once we got ready to leave, I turned on my finicky GPS system and it would not work.  I tried about 15 times to reset it, to no avail.  

I was already fried at this point, and didn't care, so I went and bought a new GPS.  It worked better from the start than the old one did, so I'm actually glad I bought it.  

We arrived at our home on Wednesday evening, 7 days after leaving the states.

We met some very nice, very fun people on this trip.  Although I would have traded the nights on the floor for nights in a hotel room, I think it was still a good experience.  The kids always had people to play with, and I always had someone to talk to, whether it was someone in the building, or someone on the phone or through texting.  I wasn't ever really alone.  

The people I traveled with became my temp-family, and we all looked out for one another.  In a way, it was hard to say goodbye to them.  A few I have found through facebook, others I will never see again.  

People have asked me if this puts a damper on me ever traveling Space A again, and I say no.  I will fly it again.  It was an experience I won't forget, and my kids are still talking about it.  And the cost is one that you can't beat: after all was said and done, I flew round trip, with three kids, for about $700.  

So yes, I will do it again.