Well, here goes nothing...time for my first blog on our trip to Ireland. Hold onto your seats. This is going to be a long trip and I'm sure I'll have lots to say. We will be in Ireland a total of five weeks. Not a bad way to spend a big chunk of the summer. It will be quite a change from toasty California. Since Ireland is so far north, a temperature of 70 degrees will be quite a scorcher. The first week, I will be joining two of my cycling buddies who cycled across America with me in 2008. We will be cycling this time across Ireland and Northern Ireland. We plan to start our journey in Donegal in the northwest corner of Ireland and end up beyond the Giant's Causeway north of Belfast in Northern Ireland. On weeks two through four, we will head back to Dublin in our rental car, pick up my in-laws, George and Grace, who are joining us, and travel in a clockwise direction around Ireland. We will be staying in a castle for two nights and, the rest of the time, in B&B's. On week five, our party of four will be joined by my brother-in-law, Bruce, and his wife Caroline. Hey, what can I say...this is a FAMILY vacation.
Our journey today started at my in-laws' residence in Walnut Creek. My father-in-law took us to the BART station where we got tickets for a train headed for San Francisco International Airport, better known as SFO. My wife realized that she had left her plane pillow behind, but not to worry...we had another one packed in my suitcase. The only problem is that it was packed with my daypack in a vacuum packed bag. We opened the bag and I'd say the volume of my daypack doubled in size. I managed to get it back in my suitcase without distorting the case too much.
We arrived at the airport, got our boarding passes, went through security, and went to our gate. We learned that the gate of our flight had changed. That was not a big deal but what was a bit more of a concern was that our plane, which was scheduled to depart at 12:55, had a mechanical problem and the pilot rejected it. (I don't handle rejection well so that didn't sound like a good thing). We finally got the problem sorted out and departed SFO about an hour late. The bad news is that we have to catch a connecting flight to Dublin at Washington Dulles Airport. Our connecting flight is supposed to depart at 10:05 p.m. Our pilot told us that we'd be arriving at about 9:45 p.m. so making the next flight sounded doable. I've run to make connecting flights before so I'm a veteran at it. The latest problem is that bad weather in the midwest is causing us to detour from the normal approach corridor, so that the new ETA is 10:00 p.m. Five minutes between flights is cutting it a hair close. I'm hoping that they will hold the plane for us a few minutes so we can make the flight. I know there are others in our plane that are also heading to Dublin. We believe in the power of prayer so we'll see what happens.
I'll keep you posted as the plot thickens...
We arrived at Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. at 10:00. I ran to the gate where the flight to Dublin had been boarding but, to my dismay, the gate was deserted. I asked a flight agent at another gate and she told me it was too late -- that the plane was ready to depart. Another passenger had better luck and was able to get a flight agent at our gate to let us on the plane! We were able to board, get our seats, and prepare for departure. But that was not to be...at least not yet anyways. A storm hit Washington and the airport is shutting down temporarily until the storm passes. Once we get the "all clear", they have to check the runways for debris, and then we can take off. Everyone is quietly sitting on the plane reading, listening to music, or watching movies. The pilot just made an announcement that we're still waiting. We will be re-routed around the weather so we have to add additional fuel. See, this is getting more interesting as the story unfolds (and prayer does work)
