We are home. I thought I would share our adventures. We started our trip at 2 a.m. Tuesday. Since we were flying stanby we started a day early and first thing in the morning. I was sure this would give us plenty of opportunities to get out of town. It only took 3 flights and running back and forth from terminal to terminal to get to Cincinatti. Upon arriving in Cincinatti, we found out we had not been rolled over to the flight into Columbia. While working this little detail out, we sat and watched numerous flights being delayed and eventually cancelled. I was getting a little concerned. We had one chance to get to Columbia that night. They delayed our flight, then delayed it later and later. Finally, I was really worried. If the plane left at the last delayed time AND if we got on it, it would be too late to get our rental car. So, my mind started working over time. Maybe, we can fly into Charlotte and drive an hour? Maybe, we can fly into Charleston and drive 2 hours? As I was trying to work this out on the phone with Peg, she says "they just cancelled your flight"! WHAT!!!We stayed in a hotel the airline had deals with. It was the biggest dump I have ever been in. We got there and the woman told us we only have smoking, is that ok? Like we have a choice! We get up to the third floor and thought I was going to die from the smoke. We had not even made it to the room. I kept telling myself, think positive thoughts, keep the girls believing this is fun. Until, we opened the door to our room...... 1 full size bed!!! Rick sat on the bed and laughed. I called down to the desk and the lady says, you didn't ask for 2 beds!!! I guess she was confused on which family my 2 blonde girls belonged to. After all, there was 2 other families there at the same time- one asian and the other african-american. So we went down to the desk to see what she had. One the way down, Ally in trying to make light of the situation says, "the only room with 2 beds is probably in non-smoking. Guess what? The woman at the desk says, the only room left with 2 beds is in non-smoking. Is that ok? The room was so dirty we didn't take our socks off the whole 9 1/2 hours we were there. We went to the airport early and waited and waited and got on the second flight out that day. We arrived in Columbia at 2 p.m. Wednesday. We made it. It was 109 that day. We made it to our hotel which seemed like a 5 star after the night before. After taking a long nap, we drove around to find everything.
Thursday was Family Day. They did a family briefing with info for the day. Then they set off smoke bombs and all the soldiers came running out of the smoke. We then had to find Mikey out of 1000 other soldiers. They all lokk the same. Same haircut, same clothes, same glasses. When we found him, it was amazing. We were all crying. He looked so old. He sounded so mature. I couldn't believe we were with him. We spent the day on base. It was extremely hot so we looked for air conditioned places. The first place we went was BK at 10am. It is the only hamburger place on base. Mikey had a whopper with fries. He savored every bite. We spent quite a bit of time shopping at the PX. Then we waited an hour and a half for a bowling lane. This was interesting since none of us are bowlers. We then visited his barracks. There was only 8 soldiers to a room. To my surprise, he was packed and ready to go. We had dinner at the officers club and then went to the reception at the church. I was hoping for a nice air conditioned building. No such luck. There was a little air. The building was actually a military building and maintained by the military. They had a baptism later that night, so they showed us the portable font. Interesting! The day ended way to soon. We had to have him back by 8 p.m. We had a great day. Well worth the trip.
Friday was graduation. It was also record heat for SC. Our car said it was 112. We got to base an hour early to get a good seat and sweat. It was so hot they had a couple of soldiers fall out. They had medics pull them off the field. And the real sad thing is they had to spend the day in the hospital instead of off base with their families. Once we found Mikey we were out of there. I brought his contacts and he had those in before we even got out of the parking lot. We went to the hotel to cool off and put dry clothes on. We then went to Bourne Supremacy. We all enjoyed it, but not as much as Mikey. Think of all the little things we take for granted- movies, popcorn, and coke. We then had ice cream for lunch. We found one those places that mixes your ice cream on a marble slab. Yum yum. Then off for more shopping to Best Buy and Circuit City. You have to remember, he has been collecting paychecks and not allowed to go anywhere. We then spent some time driving around. Mikey really thought it would have been better off base. He said they could see the town lights from base and wished they could get out. How dissappointing, it was just a regular town. We had dinner and then had to return him to base. We took more pictures and cried again. This time he is gone for 19 weeks. We sure are greatful for the time we all had together and we will all remember it always. It sure was hard to say goodbye again.
Saturday Mikey took a bus to Atlanta and caught a flight to Texas.
We drove to Charleston. We did some fun sight seeing. We toured a real submarine, just like the one Ricky was on a long time ago. It was a great birthday.
Sunday we went to the airport early. We got on the first flight to Atlanta. It was delayed a little. When we got to Atlanta, we ran to get to our connecting flight. The screen was reporting it was over sold. So I started my creative plan on how we were going to get out of there. Right before the plane was to take off they called us up to board the plane. It was a MIRACLE. We made it home. Lilmiss had a couple of bad bites on her legs that were oozing and growing. I took her in to the Dr. when we got home. We were worried it could have been a brown recluse or camel ants. They started her on a couple of meds and within 24 hours it looked alot better. Ricky brought home a bad sinus infection. Dr. says it was from the extreme heat, humidity, and air conditioner. All is good now. We had an incredible time. I would not change any of it.
