A few hours in DFW and on the plane

I left home at 3:30 a.m. for the drive to Dayton airport.  It was pretty dark and I hit fog in a few spots.  For some reason, I kept thinking of the Bear Hunt we did in Girl Scouts.  'Can't go over it, can't go under it, can't go around it, gotta go through it!"  So i just kept going.

At the airport, I parked in the economy lot and the shuttle was right there.  The shuttle van was actually packed at only 4:30 a.m.!  At Dayton it was a breeze to go through TSA pre√.  No removing shoes, no taking a computer out of your suitcase, no taking your 3-1-1 bag out of your suitcase. It’s awesome.  I'm traveling with only a carryon and a bag.  So far so good.

My flight was  pretty full too but uneventful.  The flight was about 2 hours  I arrived in DFW at 7:36 a.m. CDT, about an hour and a half before Patty was due to arrive from Grand Junction and by now I was hungry.  They had a TGI Fridays in Terminal B, where I arrived, so I ate breakfast there. 


When Patty arrived, we were both so happy!

Thanks everybody who prayed for us.  At the time of her arrival, there was still no bad weather. Yeah.

The Dallas Fort Worth airport is really nice.  They even have an app you can order your food on line from at the food places that participate and then go pick it up.  Like Uber Eats for the airport.  Maybe this has been going on for a while, but it's the first time I've seen it!

Our plane wasn’t due to leave till 1:30 p.m.  So since Patty was hungry on arrival like I had been, we walked over to Terminal A, where our next flight was departing from.  It was much busier than Terminal B where we both arrived.  By the time we got to Terminal A, the only restaurant serving breakfast was TGI Fridays!  So she ate there and we visited up a storm, and I got my fill of coffee.

After she ate, we got to our gate for the 1:30 p.m. Rome departure. At the gate, we met a couple who was traveling to Italy for their 50th wedding anniversary.  They had lived in Italy while he was in the service.  They were going to rent a villa in northern Italy and their whole family was coming to join them.  Kind of like Mom taking us on the cruise.  “You get here, I’ll pay for the cruise.”

Everything was still looking good for an on-time departure.  In fact, we were ready to board the plane at 12:40 pm when it went dark and the sky opened.  Patty thought it was nighttime. I mean it rained hard, hard, hard.

The departure time was pushed back a couple more times, and then we got the OK to board around 1:40 pm.

I was like, “Oh I’m so happy we didn’t have to wait on the tarmac and could wait at the gate!”  Hmm.  So we all got on the plane and then the thunder and lightning came! So the ground crew couldn’t work outside to assist our departure.  Over the next 2 hours, we had several more updates from the captain on how our departure time was getting pushed back again and again, but it wasn’t as bad as the nightmares I secretly harbored of being trapped on a plane sitting on the tarmac.  By 4:02 p.m. we were wheels up! (Only 2 hours and 32 minutes late.)

Other than the fact that I don’t sleep well on planes, the ride was comfortable.  We got a hot supper meal (chicken and rice), then at night or something we got a sandwich and ice cream, and before arrival we received a light breakfast of yogurt and granola.   Pretty standard type stuff for planes these days, at least those going overseas and not traveling first class.

There were free movies on individual movie screens, i-pad style. We paid extra to  sit in the bulkhead seat so we had lots of legroom. The tray tables and TV screens were hidden in and under the arm rests so  we had to literally wrestle them out, but we prevailed!  Another great (seriously) benefit to me at least is that we were real close to the bathrooms.  Some people on Seat Guru find that annoying, but I did not.  The bathroom door shows a green light when it's available and a red light when it's occupied.  Some time during the night, Patty noticed that the red light had been one door for a long, long time and was concerned that we should notify the attendants, but I was half asleep and said, "Well, there's a call light in there if they need help."  I was thinking, "Please no problems, I just want to get to Rome."

At about 7 a.m. Rome time, a couple hours before we were due in Rome, a young man standing in line by the bathroom just conked out cold and went from standing to laying on the ground (Mom, you can relate).  His girlfriend yelled for some help and thankfully there was a doctor sitting in our section who came pronto.  The flight attendants helped too.  The young man woke up OK and was pronounced OK. Never found out why he fainted or whatever.  But during the interval when we didn’t know what exactly was happening, Patty was very concerned because something like that had happened to her son Joe a few months ago.  She was very watchful of the situation.  (Of course I wanted him to be OK too, but I confess that my main thought was, “Oh I sure hope we don’t have to do an emergency landing in Paris to take him to a doctor.   I just want to get to Rome!”) Thankfully, he was OK and eventually stood up and walked of his own accord to his seat.

With no more drama (except Patty's seat neighbor leaning into her while sleeping), we arrived in Rome about 9:56 a.m.   And now it was Sunday May 19!