Today is the day! And our mission trip got off to an inauspicious start. It seems that picking “Solla Sollew” for my blog title was unwittingly prescient.
Arriving at the airport at 4 AM for a 6 AM departure, we discovered that two of the youth didn’t have seat assignments and our flight to Atlanta was overbooked by 24 passengers! Crazy story with a lot of “discussion” with the airline staff, but when no other travelers took the airline offer to await another flight, our group had to split up. Another adult from our group and I volunteered to catch a later flight, so our two youth without seats could go on.
Then we discovered that all the airlines out of Dulles were overbooked and we wouldn’t be able to get a flight out today! Meanwhile, security precautions prohibit luggage being loaded on an airplane without the luggage owner being on the airplane, so our luggage is spending the night in Atlanta pending my arrival there tomorrow. … yeah, I know, Emma DID get on the plane in Atlanta, but she didn’t check it in, so no-go. Thankfully we do have a flight out of National tomorrow morning so we’ll be arriving about 24-hours behind our Park Valley compatriots.
So I’m having troubles in getting to Chiquimula. Not all troubles come from ahead or behind — some come from Delta Airlines!