The Odds Were Ever In Our Favor

We left Louisville about 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 19 in the hopes of being one of the lucky 42 to get a “space available” flight from Baltimore-Washington International.  It took the better part of 10 hours to get there, with Kirk and I switching out drivers.  We got to BWI around 5:30, turned in the car and waited for the shuttle to the airport.

We were waiting for one bus to load when another pulled up.  Figuring it would be less crowded, we moved to that line.  The doors opened, and an elderly lady in front of us fell as she was getting in.  Kirk and Kyle tried to help her, but she crawled to her seat and pulled herself up.  We sat down next to her, and Kirk started a little conversation with her and her family.  As the bus approached the terminal, we were unsure of which stop was ours for the AMC (Air Mobility Command) terminal.  Since we were flying Space Available, we needed to check in with them to let them know we were ready to board, and we didn’t want to take a chance of missing a flight, even though we were about 3 hours early for check-in!

Kyle asked the bus driver which terminal was for the USO, and she said terminal 3.  The guy sitting across from us asked if we were military and where we were headed.  Kirk told him our plans, and he was also military, also trying to fly Space A to Germany where he and his family are stationed.  They had been in the US for 2 weeks and were headed back to Ramstein.  Great, I thought, a family of four as part of our competition, but he was kind enough to tell us that the AMC terminal was at terminal 5.

We all got off at terminal 5, and Kirk signed us in.  We were 29^th on the list, with 42 available spots.  We could only hope that the other 28 were singles and that nobody else came up! 

We headed to the USO for some down time, snacks, and recharging our iPhones.  It was a well-stocked USO with ice cream bars, microwave pizzas, soft drinks, fruit, candy…Anything we wanted!  The girls and I played cards, and Kyle moped.  He wanted to go home.  He was mad that he was missing the last day of the Forecastle Festival and Maura.  He asked Kirk if we would please buy him a ticket to go back to Kentucky.  We said absolutely not, and so he pouted.

Cards at the USO

 Roll call was at 9:30, so about 8:45, we headed up to the AMC terminal to wait.  We were crazy nervous!  We had no idea if our name would be called.  When we got to the waiting area, we saw the list of people who had checked in and the number of people in their parties.  1, 1, 2, 4, 2, 1, 1, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 1…AND we had moved down to 36!  NO!  We tried to count the numbers as they scrolled up, but there were too many moving too quickly.  Kirk took a picture of the screen, and we added up about 75 people waiting for now 39 slots.  I wasn’t looking good.

Waiting for our name to be called

We struck up another conversation with a man traveling with his son.  Paul is in the coast guard, and his son, Colin, just graduated from high school.  The two of them were trying to get to Ramstein so they could go to Normandy and the D-Day beaches.  We told them of our experiences there in 2012 and gave them the name of the Ramsbottoms at Le Clos Castel, where we had stayed. 

Suddenly, roll call began.  The guy in charge read 5 names at a time over the loud speaker, and the people had 3 chances to check in and claim their seats.  At number 13, all 39 seats had been claimed.  We were so disappointed, but we were told to wait because some of the people who had priority seating had not shown up yet, and more seats could open up closer to departure time. 

So we waited. 

I went ahead and made a reservation for a hotel, because I wanted to plan for the worse.  Paul and Colin live in the D.C. area, so they were just going to go home.  They were 27 or so on the list, which meant their chances were better than ours.  We looked for the family from the bus, but they had headed out already.  We were glad because he had been on the wait list longer than we had, and they would have added 4 more people in front of us.

Kirk went up and asked the guy at the desk what he thought our chances were.  The guy said that he couldn’t say, but that he wouldn’t leave if he were in our shoes. 

So we waited.

Close to 10:30, they started calling names again, 5 at a time.  Some people had left, so they were no longer on the list.  14-18.   19-23.  24-28.  Paul and Colin got on.  We cheered for them and wished them a great trip.  29-33….The screen had two names above us.  

We were glued to it, bouncing on our toes, holding our breath…The screen went black!  Oh no!  Was that it?  Were they full?  Would we have to try again tomorrow???

No!  A little boy playing near the monitor had accidentally unplugged it!  We still had hope!

Wait…Wait...Wait…Chochran...Creighton…Hilbrecht!!!

WE WERE ON!

I almost jumped up and screamed!  We looked at each other in disbelief.  Holy cow!  Was this really going to work?  Could we make it over to Germany on this flight?  The kids were incredulous. 

We checked in and headed through security and back to the gate.  Only about 6 more names were called after us.  We lucked out.

At 11:30, we boarded the plane.  Kyle, the girls, and I had a whole center row at the back of the plane to ourselves.  Kirk had a seat in the row in front of us.  It was surreal.  We were actually heading to Germany!  I was jacked up.  Excited.  Nervous.  Exhausted.  Shocked.  Thrilled beyond belief.  A whole ball of emotions was rushing through me.  I knew we needed to sleep.  I had been awake since 6:30.  Had driven from Louisville to Baltimore.  Didn’t sleep much the night before.  This called for some Benedryl.

I still couldn’t rest.  Who can sleep on a plane?  I dozed off and on, and after 7 hours, we landed in Ramstein at 2 p.m. on Monday morning with nowhere to stay and no particular plans. 

This is going to be some different kind of trip!