First Day of Trip

I promised I would post something about my trip. I haven't started the articles for the paper yet but I will bore our readers with excerpts from my journal for the next several days. I will start with Day #1 this time and hope everyone is still awake by the end of three weeks of trivia!

Day 1: Son #2 arrived early which was fortunate as he helped me repack because my luggage was overweight. Despite having to take time to raid Son #1's apartment for a different carry-on bag, we left for Hartsfield with plenty of time to spare which turned out for the best. Even though an accident slowed us, I still had lots of time. That is, I did until one of Delta's finest directed me to the wrong gate. By the time I walked the five miles to the correct one, the plane was boarding.

What was supposed to be a partially filled flight turned into a packed one with passengers from an aborted flight to Munich trying to make a connecting flight at Heathrow. Even so, the plane was loaded and ready to leave at the scheduled time of 10:50 p.m. but then we had to wait about 15 minutes for their luggage to get there. (Wonder if it made it to England with them?)

The flight was smooth, attendants were nice, but it would have been much more enjoyable if I hadn't wound up with a gabby seatmate who talked. And talked. Non-stop all night long! All I can say is that seven plus hours of constant chatter gave me TMI, much more than I ever wanted to know about a complete stranger. Thank heavens I've forgotten his name even though some of the grungier facts are still stuck in my brain!

All that made me much tireder than I probably should have been but R was waiting for me and we had a nice drive back to Chelmsford (Essex). We stopped at a beautiful old hotel dining room about halfway back for tea and sandwiches. At least he had tea. I opted for Diet Coke but the sandwich and service were quite good. NOTE: You will see a running theme of food in future missives. Son #1 complained about the food when he was there but apparently he didn't eat where I did. It was good at the worst and wonderful at the best which was most of the time.