A Flight to Remember

May 23-24, 2017: The Big Move

Flight 1--Raleigh to Newark 

As anyone who knows either of us well knows, we took a little long saying goodbye and wound up cutting it close at the airport. After much consternation, a full parking lot, a cell phone without reception, and some searching to say our final goodbyes, we finally got through security and rushed to our gate. Heard our names being called on the intercom (Lara wishes she could say that was the first time): "Paging Daniel and Lara Stroud. The gate will close in 3 minutes" as we got in sight of the gate. But we made it on the plane--whew! We got in our seats (breathing heavily from running while carrying a toddler) and the plane pushed away from the gate and then promptly stopped to sit on the tarmac for 45 min because of weather in Newark.  It’s worth noting here that Lara has abysmal luck with flights, well clear out of what could be explained by statistical aberration. Every time Lara flies, especially with Daniel, there winds up being some sort of delay or complication. Once we got airborne, however, the flight was easy enough; in fact, the landing was perhaps the smoothest either of us had ever experienced. Fantastic work from the captain on that one.

Flight 2--Newark to Reykjavik

Given Lara’s aforementioned luck, we wound up with even more adventures in Newark. After hours in the airport waiting to check in, more baggage fees than either of us ever want to think about, and multiple fire alarms while we sat in the terminal, we finally managed to get boarded. While Lara’s bad luck for flights extends to delays, she does have a talismanic ability to get us into good seats; though we were in the very last row of the bird, we had the only empty seat on the airplane between us. The other side of that coin was also true, however. Once we’d begun taxiing we came to an abrupt halt and had to stay on the ground because one of the engines on a flight before us caught on fire and the people had to be evacuated, which caused the airport to be shut down while they put the fire out (luckily there were only minor injuries reported). Daniel found out through twitter what was going on. After 2 hr 45 min, the airport opened again. The captain came on the air and told us we were leaving, but were 18th in line for takeoff. Significantly delayed, we finally got ourselves airborne for a bouncy and bumpy flight to Iceland (Charley was the only one who slept for more than 45 min).  

Flight 3--Reykjavik to Manchester

We had nearly two hours scheduled for our layover in Reykjavik, but because of the delay taking off, we were nervous that we wouldn't make it. We got off the back of the plane, waited for the 2nd bus, went straight from our gate to the new gate, and tried to look for a screen to find out to what gate we should have gone. While looking, we noticed that the gate literally straight across from us was for our flight that they had held, and we got immediately on the plane, to our immense relief. Given the flight schedule, if we’d not caught this flight, we would either have had to wait another day, or gotten to experience the beauty and culture of the Oslo or Copenhagen airport before a late evening arrival in Manchester. With much thanks given for the intercessions of St. Christopher, we actually wound up arriving in Manchester only about a half hour delayed. Even more miraculously, all of our luggage made it (meandering luggage being another recurring issue Lara regularly experiences), as well as our dog, Becket.  

Given the multitudes of difficulties we had, the delays, the discomfort, the lack of food (we landed having not eaten in 16 or so hours--Iceland Air has extra leg room but charges for meals), the general unpleasantness of today’s cattle car aviation (it’s still a miracle, just not a comfortable one!), it was with immense relief that we laid eyes upon a sign that said “The Strouds” being held up by a group of parishioners who had come to meet us and escort us to our new home on the side of Moel Famau, or Mother Mountain. It put to mind the words of Isaiah, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news” (Isaiah 52:7).

9 checked bags, plus several carry-on. 

Way too much stuff, but we had to pack 4+ weeks worth of clothing plus all of Charley's stuff! All of our other things are still waiting to be shipped in a cargo box in Philly until tariffs are figured out.

Weird feeling to have no keys on a keychain.

Poor image quality, but Charley is watching his first movie ("Up") on our transatlantic flight. This is what happens when it's after 9pm and you're stuck on the tarmac indefinitely and even the Benadryl isn't working (even though we tested it beforehand). The movie kept him occupied for about 25 min, which was pretty good in our book.