The Holiday from Hell (with a happy ending)

Today is Thursday and is our travel day to Europe....Edinburg, specifically.  We enjoyed a nice leisurely morning at the Embassy Suites in Charlotte.  Bob ended up making an emergency run to the CVS Clinic just to verify that his horrible coughing and rattling was not pneumonia.  ($90 later..because he forgot his insurance card) he had a clean bill of health and the nurse said it was drainage.

We were shuttled to the airport and greeted by a very nice man named Stephan who literally took us by the hand, with our luggage and slipped us by the waiting lines to check us in at the kiosk.  In less than 3 minutes, we were checked in.  The security checkpoint took much longer, but thankfully all bags passed that, too.  We had time for a nice airport lunch ( yes, they are still available) before ambling down to our gate.  We knew we had a flight delay of about 90 minutes, so didn't worry too much.  Joyce finally went online to check the status of our flight and much to our dismay saw the dreaded words CANCELLED!!  We spent the next two hours on hold for UNITED as well as in line for a gate attendant to get us rebooked.  

Mother Nature had wrecked havoc on the entire upper east coast with torrential downpours and nothing was going in or out of Newark. Bob finally was able to get someone online at UNITED and they confirmed that we were rebooked on a flight out that left on SATURDAY.  This would mean that we wouldn't arrive in Edinburgh until early Sunday morning.  By now, we also had Chuck and Janice from All Seasons Travel in Jacksonville trying to get us out of the country sooner.  Thanks to their perseverance, we are in the air over the Atlantic on our way to Dublin with a transfer to Edinburgh.  This is the same route the Beehlers are taking, but we will arrive about 3 hours later than they will. 

 Now, the next challenge will be to find our luggage.  It was supposedly rerouted, but I am a little short on optimism.  We don't leave Edinburgh until Monday, so surely we will be reunited with our bags before then.  Ask us what the best thing that happened to us today was, and it would have to be getting on this flight to Dublin AND having EXIT ROW seats ( without paying for them).  Thanks a bunch, Janice!

Stay tuned to the next chapter of our saga.  

The coast wasn't quite this rugged when we flew into Dublin this morning, but we will surely see sights as glorious as this.  Everything was quite green.