So yes, we arrived safely after an epic two day journey. Put yourself in the shoes of Grandma (age 88) or Bea (her best friend from Falls City, TX, still spry at age 86) as I run through the recap...
Day 1: San Antonio to Dallas (1 hr)
(They stayed in Dallas for a day)
Day 3:
Dallas to Detroit (2hrs)
(a half hour layover and a sprint through the airport)
Detroit to Amsterdam (about 8 hours, but a lot of time on the runway)
(an hour layover - and another airport dash)
Amsterdam to Kilinmanjaro Tanzania (about 10 hours - and we went from one day to another somewhere on this flight - i think - the days are blurred at this point.)
Day 4:
We arrived at Kilinmanjaro at 9pm or so in whatever time zone it is that they (we) are in. Then sat on the runway for an hour before taking the last leg of our trip - an hour flight to Dar Es Salaam.
And Grandma and Bea survived this epic travel day with the grace you'd expect from two classy southern ladies. Grandma is a bit achy as you can imagine, but she'll have two days in a first class hotel to rejuvenate. Tony is taking her to the spa today for some pampering, which should help to shake off the jetlag. Bea too. I think these two ladies are as tough as they are sweet. An unique combo indeed.
In all, nothing went smoothly per se, but everything worked out. There were some delays and some confusion as you might expect. Amazingly, Bea was selected for additional security screening in Amsterdam, but they were easier on her than the Dallas TSA officials were on grandma. Airline service was hit or miss, but that's the expectation nowadays. In fact, the only significant travel mishaps seemed to involve me as I have established myself as the high maintenance traveller of the group.
To start, in Detroit, I noticed Bea's wheelchair was making some funny noises, like something was stuck in the spokes. One of the wheels was off line just a bit and dragging. We tried to fix and adjust, but we had to keep pace with he group and couldn't stop for long. We were drawing some stares as a result of the noise, so I decided to look out for some better options. As luck would have it, I found an abandoned wheelchair and quickly did a switch. Bea jumped from one wheelchair to the other and we quickly caught up with the group. It occurred to me after the fact that I found the "abandoned" wheelchair outside a rest room, and that it probably wasn't really abandoned, or if it was, it was abandoned only temporarily as the occupant was occupying a seat of the flushing variety while we were pulling our daring switcheroo. So yeah, I essentially stole a wheelchair from a disabled person. You snooze, you lose. This is how we roll (wheelchair pun not intended).
On the flight to Amsterdam, I drugged myself to sleep using the potent sleeping pill Ambien in order to bring my sleep schedule in line with our calendar. The idea was to reduce the effects of jetlag, which seemed essential especially given the late nights I had leading up to the trip. When we landed, I was still in an Ambien induced funk. After leaving the plain, I realized I left my boarding pass and baggage claim info on the plane. YIKES. While Tony and Theresa arranged for some assistance for Grandma and Bea to get to the next gate, I walked back onto the plane. I somehow sweet talked some local airline attendants to let me do it - an accomplishment indeed - sweet talking across language barriers is not easy, but I think my panicked expression actually frightened the woman. She was hesitant perhaps due to security concerns, but my English panic talk worked like some sort of Jedi mind trick ("You have nothing to worry about - I do not conern you!") The passes and claim tickets were on my seat. Apparently they slipped out of my pocket while passed out cold.
Those claim tickets turned out to be pretty important because my bag was a no show at the airport last night in Dar Es Salaam. We were due for some complications, so naturally it was me that it involved. Better me than Grandma and Bea. I am the least fashionable of the group, so wearing the same clothes for a few more days has little impact. I also wear considerably less makeup than they do. And my BO smells like roses, so no harm done there.
My bag was located in Amsterdam, and it will be delivered to the hotel tonight...hopefully. Feel free to place bets amongst yourselves on the likelihood of that happening. If worse comes to worse, I may have to go to the local marketplace to get some clothes. Maybe an oversized shirt with red, black, and green zig zag stripes and pants to match? I saw some guy at the airport wearing that, and I regret not getting the name of his tailor. (I suspect I have some people rooting against me getting my luggage now.)
Gotta ice my wrists from this lengthy dispatch. I have a few other updates to post shortly, so stay tuned.
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