Long Road Home

May 8

Morning came way too early after all the excitement from the night before. Still we were all up, dressed, packed and out the door by 9:30.

We ate at The Comb, a larger café across the street that had room to hold our bags while we had breakfast. Well actually it was more like a snack. I could only describe the place at an upper scale café where they sell tiny yet fancy little foods with a beautiful presentation at a high price.

Bryan had an avocado spread on a piece of toast for $10. I had one crepe with cheese and spinach and Rob a bowl of portage, again about $10 each. My coffee was about 4 oz in a tiny little cup I could only hold with three fingers, of course no refills, for $4.

We had the chef call us a cab and found out they have an app here in Edinburgh for cabs that works just like Uber. It’s simply called City Cabs. It shows the nearest driver, where they are on a map, the cost of the ride and you can pay online. Very fast and efficient, and so much so that we found ourselves at the train station almost an hour ahead of time. 

Todays travel excitement was that it was time to check in for our flights home tomorrow on British Airways. We tried to do so but getting blocked saying we need to update our Covid certification. Attempting to do so brought us a form that only asked for our name, address and phone number, nothing about Covid and evan after doing that we were still not able to check in for the flight.

The only information we received was a notice that we need to check in at the gate three hours prior to our departure, which would mean showing up at the airport tomorrow morning at 4 AM. Needless to say this was not very pleasant news to hear.

The train ride was very pleasant though and incredibly smooth. It was hardly as if we were moving. The terrain was familiar by now and still just as lovely as ever. There were what seemed like endless fields of sheep with their babies and woods and rivers and snow covered mountains with their tops shrouded in clouds and small villages, all build using the same kind of stone, and the occasional castle on a hillside in the distance. It was our last views of the Scotland highland and it didn’t disappoint.

One thing we saw literally everywhere throughout the country was a plant called Gorse. It is an extremely hardy evergreen flowering shrub with sharp and ubiquitous spines all along its stems. The explosion of yellow flowers in late winter and early spring is accompanied by the powerful scent of sweet coconut. It grows all over Scotland where there are rough grassy places, loving acid soils near the coast, including clifftops. 

Rob never could shake the fact that we were not checked in for our flights. Arriving at Inverness he wanted to catch a cab out to the airport to try and check-in. I’ve found that small airports often don’t have counter agents available all day so it may not work out. Plus if the airline is not letting us sign in for no reason of ours then likely most other folks are having the same problem. But we didn’t know for sure and Rob is precise and determined, so we found a cab and went to the airport.

Rob contacted customer support who told us not to worry and to show up at the airport at 4 AM to check-in there. At the airport the gate agent was not able to help and also told us to show up the next morning early yet she informed us that the they won’t be there until 5 AM.

Another case of one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing.

We caught the same cab back to our Holiday Inn Express in Inverness. We had a final meal at a nice little local restaurant called The Snow Goose, just in front of the hotel, that served some very tasty fish and chips, of course. Bryan and Jason both had something else though. There is a rebel in every group.

May 9

The hotel stay was a good bit shorter than we would have liked as we caught a cab at 4:30 to return to the airport. We checked in no problem and by 7:00 we were on the way to Heathrow.

We landed in Heathrow without any problems but that’s where the ‘no problems’ ended. To start with, as we were gathering our belongings to get off the plane, I noticed that my water bottle was empty. I had filled it just before getting on the plane and I didn’t drink it. I discovered that the water didn’t spill out on the floor, I still had it all, it just moved from inside my bottle to the inside of my backpack.

We were expecting close to a 3 hr layover so at last we could use one of the priority lounges that was a benefit of our fancy credit cards. First we had a lengthy transfer to another terminal via bus and then had to go right back through security. There practically everything had to come out of our bags. Three of us had to go through additional security and it took a lot longer than usual due to so few staff checking bags.

While repacking and trying to figure out where to go next Rob noticed he had a different seat number on our main 10 hr flight back to the US. We booked our seats back in October and even paid extra to have all four seats together. We each pulled out our boarding passes and we were all over the plane, not one seat close to another.

So here we go, through miles of London airport till we found the airline services where of course there was only one employee available for American Airlines. When it was finally our turn we explained the problem and after a very long procedure of checking tickets, receipts, emails and codes multiple times she found where we did indeed have paid seats together.

She moved us all back to the same row but not until she informed us numerous times that the seats cost $89 each but she would waive the fee this one time only as a courtesy. I asked, what happened and was there something we could have done to prevent this. Oh no, it wasn’t your fault, she replied, they changed planes to a smaller aircraft so the seating was changed around, so you couldn’t have prevented that, but don’t worry, the seats cost $89 each but I will waive the fee this one time only as a courtesy. I wanted to say something to the effect that I think she forgot to put her brain in when she got up this morning but I wasn’t gonna dare to risk loosing those seats again.

The last thing she said to us is, you better hurry to your flight because it’s starting to board. OMG There goes our priority lounge again. But at least things were sorted out and we hurried to our gate.

At least all the changes and commotion was keeping Rob occupied. Every time things got quiet he would start crying again about how he didn’t want to leave and wanted to stay in Edinburg. He enjoyed the trip so much and kept moaning about wanting to stay, or at least coming back soon. Only thing was he kept forgetting the name. I want to go back to Erenor, he wined as we boarded the first plane. We all knew what he meant as he kept going through a list of names that were anything but Edinburgh. But at least they all started with an E. After all the mix-up with the seats he started whining again. See, he said, I knew we should have just stayed in Erenburg.

We arrived at the gate and presented our new boarding passes to the attendant and she stopped us. Did you change seats recently? We explained the procedure we just went though. Apparently there was still some kind of problem and again we all presented our boarding passes and again we ended up with different seats. Rob was not happy. We planned this ahead of time. When there was a problem that was sure to arise I was to go to the counter with all our information and Jason and Bryan were to distract Rob and keep him away. He doesn’t handle problems like this very well and has been known to have quite a short temper especially when dealing with incompetence and poor mismanagement. This was one one of those times. Jason was trying to talk to distract him and I heard Rob chime in, see that’s it, I’m going back to Eregon!!

Everything was soon settled and and we were ready to board. It was nothing but sweet paradise once we were FINALLY seated together in our precious seats that we’ve spent hours trying to acquire.

While we were settling in I heard one of the flight attendants telling someone they are trying to help a family sit together. I perked up! Oh no no no way I was thinking, not after all that work! The stewardess approached us and I just looked at her with a smile and shook my head no.

Come to find out she was actually going to let us know there were a few empty rows if we wanted to spread out.

Empty rows?

After all that work at the gates.

I needed a cider!

The flight went well as any other long cramped overseas flight in economy seating and we landed at DFW at 2:30. Walked and walked and walked till we got to Passport control. Then had to go back through security. That went well this time except it took Rob about 10 minutes to get through with all the stuff back in his pockets. We weren't expecting another security checkpoint.

The flight arrived early and now we had close to a 4 hour layover. We were hoping for a lounge and wandered through the terminals until we found a sign for a brand new Capital One lounge. We all had that card and off we went. And we actually made it in!! It was complimentary with our specific credit cards so finally we got to visit a lounge and this was one of the best. Complimentary food, drinks, deserts, snacks of all kinds. Nice comfortable seating areas and even yoga and exercise rooms and shower areas and more. We were exhausted so no yoga but we all ate a good bit.

After a nice rest we headed to our final flight and last part or our journey.

We landed in Little Rock just after 7:30 PM and still had an hours drive home from the airport. Rob left his truck in long term parking so it was still there waiting on us when we arrived.

By the time we got home it was 9:00 PM.

Our total travel time from the time we left the hotel in Inverness at 4:30 AM was 22 1/2 hrs.

Thankfully we are all home and safe and sound.

We are also all equally ready for bed!

But now that we're home, where are we supposed to find fish and chips?