On the way to London

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The adventure has begun, and, like all Farina vacations, it got off to a unique start. Last night, I couldn't sleep. I kept playing over and over in my mind the time and travel schedule we had planned for departure to the airport. Cathy wanted to go to 11 am mass , which ended at noon. Her plan was to be in the house by 12.30 PM and we would get to the airport by 1.40pm. That left less than 90 minutes to check baggage, pass through TSA and head to the gate. For me that was cutting it a little close.

I woke up at 3.45 am. Fortunately, she was also awake, and we negotiated an earlier plan. She would go to 9am mass and be home by 10.30 am, do the final pack and call for an Uber by 11.30am. I was much more comfortable and fell into a deep sleep.

At 7.30 in the morning we put the plan into action. Cathy got dressed, and headed off to mass. I stayed home, did some additional packing, and was ready by the time she came home.

Cathy arrived home precisely at 10.30 am, as planned, she changed into comfortable travel clothes, a must for a full day of air travel, completed her final packing and we called Uber at 11.18 am.

Our Uber driver arrived by 11.30 and we were on our way to Detroit. My first concern was traffic to Detroit. I went to Detroit area earlier in the week and there was a bunch of construction slowwing travel, so I assumed there would be traffic. Unfortunately, I was not aware that the Rapture happened last night because the road was virtually empty. We arrived to Detroit airport in an astonishing 53 minutes!

The airport entrance had some cars out front, so I assumed, again there would be lines inside going to check in. Again,WRONG. We walked right to the luggage checkin desk, had a minor issue logging in but the nice CSR lady negotiated our checkin and we were ready for TSA inside of 5 minutes.

I went to the CLEAR line and Cathy headed to the TSA precheck line. Her line moved real quick and we were on the sterile side inside of 10 minutes. Unfortunately, it was only 1.30pm so we had 2 hours to wait in the Delta Sky Club. I know if we left at 12.30 there would have been an issue, so I was glad we left early, Cathy....not so much.

We enjoyed a beverage or two, had a healthy lunch of chicken salad, with vegetables, I added a hot dog, and a delicious cappuccino, to top it off. Finally, it was time to go to the gate.

Now, here is where it got a little interesting. Last night I got a text from Delta saying the flight was overloaded and they needed 2 folks to volunteer to take a later flight. I thought about it for a moment, but not knowing when the next flight was, I had no desire to miss the transatlantic flight, so I passed on the option.

When we got to the gate the offer was made again, and they added $500 to the offer. I stepped up! My concern still was the next flight, but the gate agent told me, " we can put you on the direct flight to London at 6 PM rather than fly to NY and wait till 11pm.

"Sign me up,"

Unfortunately, the flight prepared to leave and there were 2 people who did not show up, so , although completely full, we did not get bumped. We flew, as planned, to JFK and here I sit at 8pm with 3 hours till our flight.

Oh, well it was close!

Stay tuned I am sure it will get interesting from here.

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