Last day's Trafalgar schedule was bags out by 6am, breakfast at 6:30am, bus departed at 7am, arrival at Zurich airport by 8am. Our Iceland Air flight was at 2pm. We had the better part of a day to kill but we spent it in the terminal. All our flights were more or less on time. That tight connection in Iceland is a nightmare. We made it but only by running past immigration/border control leaving Schengen. I can't say I'd recommend Iceland Air. There is no easy way to get to and from the USA to Europe except maybe by cruise ship and that only works if you have an extra couple of weeks to spare instead of a day. It was a better and easier experience than flying over with the weather delay to begin. I think we were all glad we'd decided to spend the night at the Quality Inn Mall of America again on the return flight. The motel rooms are in serious need of a renovation. Our outbound room had a grim bathroom, but otherwise was OK. The return room was grim overall. It smelled bad, the bathroom was in even worse shape, all the wallpaper was peeling and the ceiling had a crack all the way across the room. On the plus side, there was an ice machine on every floor! There was a working fridge in the room and Air Conditioning! But it is the USA so those would be basics if we hadn't just left Europe. It is all a matter of perspective. We skipped dinner and fell asleep about 8:30pm.
We were all up before 5am on Saturday. Breakfast at the Quality Inn starts at 6am. We had reserved the 7:55am complimentary shuttle to the airport. Mom had the earliest flight and we dropped her at Terminal 2 for Southwest Air first. We got to Terminal 1 after a longer than expected drive. We saw a wild turkey in a field on the way! All our flights were on time and we all got home Satuday night unable to stay awake again. Jet lag! Clay & I had a perfect bookend flight experience to end the trip. Our first Iceland Air flight was delayed out of MSP by a popup thunderstorm than caused the airport to close the ramp right before the plane we awaited landed. Our AA flight into RDU was stalled by a late departure clearing our gate. 5 minutes later the plane pushed back and it started pouring rain. RDU closed the ramps for a thunderstorm and we spent 15 minutes waiting for the 3 guys with the lighted sticks to return so we could get to the gate! We spent another 10 waiting for the gate to touch the door of the plane so we could exit. We spent another 20 or so waiting for the luggage people to catch up after the brief shut down. Perfect timing for a bookend ending to our untimely beginning.
Happy to be home! Happy to have shared our Big O Birthday Trip with Mom and Carol.
Little Bob hits the road
Little Bob hits the road
