A JOURNEY TO THE UNITED KINGDOM
Entry Twelve

Well, what took us two hours to get through the day before was about a half hour in the quiet Sunday morning traffic. What an amazing difference. We stop at the gas station to top off the tank before turning in the rental van. I go to grab the green handle and mat yells, “Wait”! Green is not always diesel like you usually see at home. I almost gave it a dose of unleaded. Oopsy!! We turn into the airport and start trying to decipher signs. We know the airline we are flying on and it’s not on any of the signs. We see a little kiosk on the side of the road with the “I” symbol… maybe for information. On it there is a typed list of the airlines and which terminals to take. Why not put this on a sign that you could see while moving? We finally realize that aero-something must mean terminal or gate so we take the one with our number. We circle around the terminal looking for a drop off area and realize that they want you to pay for short-term parking just to drop off your stuff. I pull up to the gate and push the ticket button so it will raise the bar. Nothing happens so I push it again and again. I see something on the screen that looks like it could mean direct payment so I’m thinking you might just pay a flat rate and so I ask Mat for the credit card and feed it into the machine. It eats it and won’t give it back… or raise the bar… we are stuck! Luckily, I see something on screen that looks like attendant and I finally get someone that speaks English and explain the dreadful thing that I have done. While we wait fifteen minutes or so for them to come from who knows where to fix it, Mat is directing traffic through to another lane. They open up the machine and give back the band credit card. I’m not sure what that slot was for but it isn’t meant for a credit card. The other lane works perfectly and we make it through to where we can unload. Mat and I leave Troy and Shannon to guard the stuff as we try to make our way over to the rental returns. We know right where to go since we passed by it several times. The only problem was that we remember there being a height limit. Earlier, Troy said we should just try it since it looked so close. After all there was no other information on the sign as to where to go if you didn’t fit. So we try. I creep along as Mat watches from outside the van. It looks like it will make it so he hops in. We inch farther and we hear metal on metal as we scrape. Mat gets out and has to get a few cars to back up behind us so I have enough room to turn out of the lane and I grind my way back out. Now what? We end up exiting the whole airport to try to figure out how to get off on one of the service area roads where we remember seeing a sign for our particular rental company. It ends up being a repair shop for the company but they tell us that you have to go to such and such terminal. You return it in their outdoor lot, and take a shuttle back to our other terminal. Why not just put that on the sign below the height limit restriction? If I only had a sharpie I’d write it up there myself!! This running around was over an hour and Troy and Shannon are really getting nervous about us making it back. We luck out and get in line with our Woodcrest friends because they are actually checking some of our baggage as their own to save us hundreds of dollars. We have no idea what is going on but they do not charge us anything extra for oversize or overweight. One of the baggage handlers is so excited to have a band coming through. He is grinning from ear to ear. He disappears with our stuff so I give the ticket person a cd and ask her if she could give him one for us too when he comes back for the rest of our load. By the time we make it through all the security checkpoints, we only have fifteen minutes before we board the plane- we had allowed an extra two hours and I guess we needed it. I decide to use up some of my euros and buy about ten dollars worth of bottled water since they confiscated Troy’s at the last checkpoint. I cross the room to board the plane and they want to confiscate the water I just bought 30ft away. I’m too tired to fuss so Troy starts guzzling. We do manage to smuggle one onboard. I think it’s a ten-hour flight and Troy probably drinks a cup every fifteen minutes- it’ll be good for everyone if he has water!! I’m doing the flight attendants a favor! The flight is great- every seat has their own monitor and can watch different movies, tv shows, listen to cds (wonder how we could upload ours). I watched Mission Impossible 2 and poke Troy in the arm when they show the giant windmills that the helicopters were weaving in and out of- just like the ones we saw in England- minus the stunt work action. We will watch movies with new eyes from now on. We make it to Philadelphia and have to do the customs thing again. They confiscate Troy’s fruit and veggie stash. I declare my tulips and am not about to turn loose of them- they are my only souvenirs besides a couple t-shirts. I think it will be cool to have something to come up every year to remind me of Holland. They make us caravan all of our gear through the airport and have it x-rayed again for the next plane. We manage to pile it up on four carts that I can barely see over and we don’t manage to run over anyone! The flight to St. Louis is a little rocky. We are on a tiny plane compared to the last one and it is storming. Hope they strapped down Troy’s amp. Maybe we ought to have taken off the wheels! We make it and so does all of our gear.