The Bad Day That Wouldn't End

I’ve just drug myself out of bed after an amazing 12 hours of un-interrupted sleep and I thought I would let the world know about it:)! In order to understand the importance of last night…you have to read about my previous two nights of ‘sleep’. Sunday night is recounted in a post below…and Monday night will be included in this post!
After my nice jog on Monday morning, I drove Manny down to the beach so he could swim while Barrett and I rode the race bike course 3 times…thank goodness the race was over because we had some stiff head winds that were not fun. After training, we grabbed lunch (for the 5th and last time) at Quizno’s and then started packing our bikes and bags to check out of the hotel.
We got on the road towards NYC around 3:30pm…plenty of time to get to the airport so we thought we could stop in Manhattan for a few minutes to kill time. That idea was tossed when we got on I-95 towards the airport and sat in 5mph traffic for 2 hours! It was miserable…especially since I was driving the tank (aka a mini van) filled with bike boxes, luggage, and people. So all our extra time was spent on the freeway…we did pull off once to find a Starbucks for coffee and chocolate to keep our spirits up:).
We got to the airport around 5:30…about 4 hours till our flight…and left Barrett at the check-in counter with ALL our luggage while Manny navigated me to the ‘off-site’ rental-car return. Of course we managed to get lost a few times in the Bronx…but that just made this story better.
I filled up the gas tank about 2 miles from the Enterprise location, but when I started driving the gas gauge needle decided to have a mind of its own…it would just move randomly back-and-forth between empty and ¾ full (never all the way over to F, though). I KNOW it was full because I topped it off at the station (right where they have BIG signs saying: ‘Do Not Top Off’)!!! At least the guy at the car rental place believed me when I told him the tank was full…I think he did…
Back at the airport, we found Barrett with our bags and bike boxes and got in line to check into our Lufthansa flight. I was the first one at the counter but when I handed my passport tot the lady, she said they had NO record of me on the flight to Frankfurt!! My heart went ‘thud-thud’ but I kept my cool and started calling people at USAT to find a solution. I finally got in touch with Scott who got in touch with the United travel agency that booked our flights. They called me back and spoke to the Lufthansa people via my cell phone…and finally found my ticket…now I could check in!
Of course, they weren’t going to let me get on the plane without taking me for all I was worth to get my bike box on the plane…so I had to go over and put $210 on my credit card at a different desk. They ran my credit card once, but when it didn’t go through, I asked them to try it again. After two denials, I tried another card, which was successful. I immediately got on the phone with my original card company to find out what the problem was…the charge from Lufthansa was coming to them through Germany…so I had them note that I would be in Germany, Hungary, and Switzerland over the next month.
The day-with-too-many-problems was not over yet…I had to go through the EXTRA security line before getting to the gate for our 9:10pm flight to Frankfurt. At Gate 4, we heard an announcement that the flight was going to be delayed a few minutes so we had time to grab some dinner before boarding. Once on the plane, I had my first good moment of the day: the plane was about ¼ full so I got an entire middle row of 4 seats ALL to MYSELF! I was already stretching out to sleep…but then the Captain came on the intercom and said we were last in a LONG line of planes for take-off…it must have been one heck of a line because we sat for 2 HOURS before finally getting off the ground!!
I actually don’t remember a bit of the flight because I was sound asleep on my row…we landed 2 hours late in Frankfurt…breezed through customs (I got a new stamp in my passport:)…picked up our luggage and bike boxes…and then loaded into the van with one coach and 2 athletes who had been waiting 6 hours for us to arrive!!
It was about a 1 hour drive to the Air Force base at Sembach…I looked out the window the whole time to take in the sights of Germany…beautiful fields and trees mostly. The base is really nice too…out in the middle of nowhere, not to busy, and it has great roads in every direction for biking! Photos will be posted soon!