Chris & Kelly's Travel Adventures
Day 1: Friday, Aug. 11
Boston by Bus & Boots
Thursday the 10th had been "Day 0" for our trip—all traveling essentially. Dad and Sandy flew in to Boston from Arkansas, while we flew from Oregon. We all met up in at the Comfort Inn in Revere, MA (just north of the airport) to have dinner and stay the night.
Most of Friday was open for sightseeing before our international flight that evening, so this became our "Day 1."
After breakfast at the Inn on Friday morning, we grabbed a taxi to downtown and boarded a tour bus for a look at historic Boston.
Early on, our bus route gave us an "end-on" view of the famous Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, completed in 2003. This is a graceful cable bridge that connects a freeway to an extensive tunnel system running under the length of the city. The tunnel construction was a huge project in its time, known every-where as "The Big Dig."
Later on the tour route, we passed near the Boston Commons, Fenway Park, and (below) the State Capitol.
Luke's BackBay Lobster Rolls
For lunch, I tried my first lobster roll at the renowned Luke's.
It was as amazingly delicious (and expensive) as advertised!
Old South Church
This church is home to one of the oldest religious organizations in the United States. Some famous members include Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams.
Benjamin Franklin was baptised here as an infant. And legend has it that Samuel Adams gave the signal for the Boston Tea Party from the Old South Church.
Trinity Church
Another gorgeous church we explored, Trinity also has connections to early U.S. history: Alexander Hamilton was buried here.
Our tour ended back downtown, near Christopher Columbus Park, where, for some reason, we had trouble getting a cab that could accomodate all four of us.
This was our first little hitch of the trip, really. We ended up taking two cabs, one couple in each, to get us all back to the Inn. Once there, we needed to get our bags and catch the shuttle to the airport.
At the airport, once we checked our bags, we had some time to grab a bite at Boston Legal Seafood. Chris was eager to tuck into his salmon BLT.
At the table, we all remarked about how, after the long day of touring and walking, it was good to relax before the overseas flight. Nothing more to worry about—just stroll around the corner to our gate at boarding time!
Little did we know...
Airport Headache Marathon
After supper, we went to our gate and awaited the call to board our Delta international flight. But soon we heard an announcement that our flight departure was delayed by an hour. Okay, not a big deal—it's an overnight trip, and we have all morning at Heathrow to connect to our bus to the cruise port.
Then we noticed that the crew members had exited the plane and were also waiting in the lobby with us passengers (but whispering among themselves), and the plane that was apparently ours had been moved from the jetway into an open space some distance away. That's when dad said, "Look there—that's a bomb-sniffing dog!" Sure enough, several officers were outside on the tarmac with a dog, walking toward our plane. Okay, maybe not so good....
Shortly after that, they delayed our flight "at least another hour"—vague wording that truly lacked... confidence.
Okay, really not good: If they couldn't get this resolved pretty soon (and one really shouldn't rush a bomb detection & disposal squad, actually), there weren't going to be any more flights leaving for London until morning—which would get us there much too late to catch the shuttle to Southampton. We'd miss our cruise boat.
So... moment of decision: Do we wait and hope/trust that our own flight would leave this evening—or do we get proactive and re-book another flight (very soon)?
After a polite chat at the gate with the harried-but-very nice Delta agent, we had her book us on the only other flight yet to leave for London that night. As it happened, it was on Virgin Atlantic (a partner of Delta's), so the re-booking process was easy for her (and no-cost for us), so we certainly felt lucky to get four of the last few seats. The only inconvenience was that we had to go back out to collect our lugguage (five suitcases) get new boarding passes at the Virgin counter, then go through TSA (again) and get to our new gate. But we had 3 1/2 hours to accomplish all this, and the agent assured us that our bags would be spit out from the "returns" carousel downstairs in about an hour. Should be fairly straightforward...
Over two hours later, we were still waiting for our luggage to arrive at that baggage carousel. Our local "hero," Chris, then went in search of help. Suffice it to say here that without his becoming a very "squeaky wheel," we would still be awaiting those bags. Several people and phone calls later, we finally had our luggage, and then the four of us began speedwalking back to the Virgin counter, needing to get there before it could close. (All ticket counters close a half-hour before the last flight of the day is called.) We hurried to the escalators... only to find them... broken! I took the smallest suitcase and hauled it up the stairs to get the ticket process started, leaving Chris, Dad, Sandy and four large suitcases to navigate the crowded elevators.
Long story short, we made our flight and thought we could finally relax....
Ah, but when we boarded, there was a gentleman sitting in Chris's seat. I said, "Excuse me, but I think you're in my huband's seat." He showed me his boarding pass, and we compared it to Chris's.... The airlines had double-booked the seat. Fortunately, there were a couple extra seats on the flight still, and the man was nice enough to let us two sit together. Unfortunately (and we didn't know this until the next morning upon landing), the seats assigned elsewhere to poor Dad and Sandy were next to the restrooms, so people queuing up through the night for potty breaks kept accidentally bumping into them. So no sleep for them. (I forgot to mention that Dad hadn't been able to sleep for some reason, so this was one of several nights in a row of no sleep for him!)