Five o'clock came way too early. We needed to make it to the airport by 7:00 for our 8:55 flight. First, we had to get ready, finish packing, get the kids up and ready, and go get mom to get her to drop us off at the airport. Only a few tears fell from my eyes. I would call that a success!!
We sat in the airport all day. Our flight to DC was the worst. We had to attempt landing twice because of the wind gust of over 40 mph. When we did land, it felt like we were tossed all over the runway. Once we finally made it into the terminal, we took a shuttle to our next terminal, which was across the tarmack-who designed this airport anyways? Then we sat. And we sat. And we sat some more. I walked up and down the terminal several times because I was so board and knew I would be sitting for 10 hours pretty soon.
Finally, our plane boards around 4:00. We got settled in for the 10 plus hour flight; a movie came on; my ear buds were in; I was ready. "Attention passengers, we seemed to have lost a generator on take off and we can't fly over open water without it. We're going to have to dump some fuel (aka so if we crash there won't be a huge explosion) and make our way back to Dulles." As we circle around the East coast area, I look out my window and see fuel being dumped out of the plane. Finally, we make it back to Dulles with emergency vehicle lights going and following us to the terminal. Pretty exciting day, and we haven't even left the USA!!!
