3 Steps to Vacation: Step 1 - Connections

After getting myself home from London, I had to finalized my packing and get ready for Monday.  Normal people, upon returning home from a weekend away, would unpack but did I ever claim to be normal?

Monday morning found me at work and attempting to catch up on everything!  This was impossible, but I did my best before clearing my desk and starting my next journey.

Dropping the car off at the airport long term car park felt like deja vu, since I had only picked my car up less than 24 hours before!  But it was so nice not to have to get up at 4am and worry about traffic.

Flying US Airways was different, landing at Philly, Charlotte and ending up at Fort Walton Beach.   Quickest trip over, ever!!!

We stayed just across the street from the airport and bought a virtual picnic breakfast for our room after dropping our cases off. There is a Tesco Express at the airport so it was really easy to do this.  And I also discovered they sell American food there! Like Aunt Jemima's Pancake syrup and Hershey's bars!  Needless to say, I did not purchase any since they are at least twice the price and we were going to the land of American food!

After enjoying a leisurely breakfast, we toddled to gate when ready and settled in for the flight.......all went well until the pilot announced we did not get the route they requested and would have to fly further north.  This might sound like a bad thing, but the view was spectacular and I feel like we were really lucky. We have flown close enough to see Greenland before, but never over it.  After cruising the fjords in Norway, the area we flew over felt so familiar, complete with what looked like fjords to us.   I could not get any pictures, but I will get some of Alan's to show how stunning it was!

Then, we were delayed in Philly due to the catering getting on the plane late. This was really odd because the only "catering" is free drinks or purchased sandwiches, which no one seemed to buy.  It seemed like a terrific waste of time to wait for what appeared to me to be unnecessary catering supplies.  So we had to run to make our connection to get to Fort Walton Beach. Normally this would not be so critical, but I had an 8 am meeting in Alabama, the next day, I could not miss, so it was a bit worrisome.  We     made it though!

“When you're down, remember your triumphs. [...] Sometimes you get in trouble and crash. Other times: just a bumpy landing.” 

― Ellyn Bache, The Art of Saying Goodbye: A Novel