February 25, 2011

February 25, 2011 – Friday
--Once in the air, dinner was served and then the lights went out. Somewhere, over Libya?, I saw lights that looked like large fires – I worried, then felt reassured that they were communities and ok. Maybe they were oil refineries burning off wastes? I couldn’t sleep. At 6 am breakfast was served. We arrived in Brussels at 7 am, went through more security checks getting to our connecting flight – our passports remained in our hands since we needed to show them so often. Then we were the waiting area only to find that the internet kiosks were not in service – darn! We killed 4 hours.
--12:30 pm – We boarded United Airlines for Washington-Dulles almost 9 flying hours away, and earlier clock time – Cameroon is 8 hours later than Arizona. An ok midday meal was served. The flight was crowded and seating was tight – I was glad to have the window seat, but I was restless and it was still very hard to sleep.
--We arrived at Dulles at 2:15 pm EST – tired and dazed. As with all arriving international flights, we had to collect our check-in luggage and have it checked by US Customs before it could be loaded on the plane to Phoenix. When we got the luggage, one check-in bag missing, and we had to wait for it to be sent and catch up to us. Eventually we got all our check-in and carry-on luggage and went through customs w/o incident. We picked up the bags and rechecked them – including our carry-ons – dang! The baggage handler checked and couldn’t find our bags, he said they’re already gone and he couldn’t retrieve them. Then we spoke with United Airlines Customer Service who said the same and took our information – we fear the 2 check-in bags may not have adequate identification since they were never checked in.
--With the baggage snafus, when we got to the gate our flight was already boarding – that layover whizzed by!
--The last leg of our journey. We left Dulles at 5 pm, and after almost 6 hours we arrived at Phx Sky Harbor, at 8:00 pm. Peggi was there! Robert circled the airport with the car while we did the luggage gig. We hugged and danced around the baggage carousel. Chattering happily, very tired, we got the 3 check-in bags, but the carry-on bags didn’t come on this flight. So we met again with United Airlines Customer Service and gave descriptive info. When the bags arrive they’ll fly them to Show Low Airport.
--It was good to hear family news, so, so wonderful! And we had American fast food for supper – I’d looked forward to this and wasn’t disappointed. Then Motel 8 in Apache Junction, and to sleep.