Gimme a Ticket for an Air-o-plane...

Yesterday we found ourselves again racing to get home to our pup following a trip.

At 4:30AM we woke up in Rome, and walked to Trastevere station to catch the train to the airport. At the airport we thought it odd that none of the escalators or moving walkways were working, only to find out that they were having a brownout. As we stood in the long line to check in, BZZzzuuuwww... blackout. The power came back on (we got to see all of the display screens booting Windows 95) and we finally checked in, but none of the bag conveyers were working. We stood around while they determined what to do with the checked luggage. We then did the OJ dash through the airport to get on our plane for Heathrow. In Heathrow we thought we had plenty of time to recheck for the next flight, but there was a long line for check-in. We used the computerized check-in, but then the line to drop off bags was gridlocked. With one and a half hours to go until flight, they pulled us out of line and said we had to race to the gate or we'd miss our flight. With one and a half hours? Then we saw the security line, which was fully one quarter mile back and forth and down the corridor. They pulled us out of that line before we even found the end of it, and raced us to a special line for a pre-screening... before we got into another serpentine line. I was getting frisked (they confiscated my lip balm) with five minutes to go until they were to close the gate. Another mad dash, in socks, to get to the very last gate at the far end of the terminal. Needless to say, we didn't get a lot of airport shopping done.

But when we finally got home, Pappy couldn't have been much happier to see us. And we were pretty happy to be home.