Europe 2019 - Day 1

It was an early start, but not a single girl was complaining.  In fact, Misha who had been out late the night before, was the first one out of bed and in the shower.  I opened Kristen’s door around 6:15 am and she said, “I have an alarm.”  I peeked in Amy’s room, and she was still in bed but awake, waiting for Misha to get out of the shower.

I got up early to walk on my treadmill for about 20 minutes.  I knew it would be a long day of sitting ahead of me.  We pulled together our suitcases, packed last minute stuff and makeup, had some breakfast, and were out the door shortly after 7 am.  

Julie and Patrick were still sleeping (even though Chris had to retrieve a rain jacket from the closet in their bedroom).  We said our goodbyes the night before.  They didn’t leave the house until about 11:30 am later that morning.

There was some excitement in the car as we drove to the airport.  Amy was just so happy to be with us this trip instead of participating as “Flat Amy”.  It would be fun to have her along.

We were able to find parking in Pikes Peak Parking lot.  They are doing maintenance work on it, so half of the lot was blocked off.  Good thing we didn’t have to drive all the way out to the Mt. Elbert lot.  It would have added maybe another half an hour to our time.  Amy and Misha didn’t have pre-check and might not have made it on time.

We boarded and began our long day of flying with a 3.5 hour flight to Dulles.  After a two-hour layover and a two-hour flight delay due to a mechanical problem, we were finally able to board.  The entire plane had been boarded and was ready to go when the pilot kindly asked that we all gather our things and boarding passes and exit the plane.  Apparently, the A/C wasn’t working properly and a new plane had to be brought over from the hanger.  We eventually had to move to a new gate.

I jumped up to help a lady who was traveling alone with three young children.  As she walked to the new gate carrying two of her little girls’ backpacks, a diaper bag, and a baby, I asked if I could help.  She handed me her baby.  Fortunately he was a happy, laughing little guy.  I helped her get settled and then returned to the gate to grab my back pack and walk back again to the new gate with my family.

Since the new plane had a different seating configuration, I was not sitting by Chris.  All of us were separated.  I asked the flight attendant if I could move to the empty seat by Chris and she okayed the move.  From there, the flight was fairly uneventful.  I was able to sleep some of the time, maybe a couple of hours.  Enough to make it through the next day.