A Rocky Start

Just shy of a week ago today we hugged the neighbors, had breakfast with Grandma and Pawpaw and were driven to the Tulsa airport by our gracious friend Brett. Then the unpleasantness began. At check-in we were told one of our bags was overweight. This would disturb anyone, but we’d called the airlines the day before to double check the limits because Wade thought they’d dropped to 50 pounds. No, the United Rep. assured him, 70 pounds was still the limit for international travel. LIES! So, in the big middle of Tulsa airport we began shifting weight from one bag to another and called Brett who kindly returned to the airport and took a few books off our hands. In the chaos, Diana busted the zipper on her carry-on. Thankfully, the airport had a suitable replacement for less than fifteen dollars. We regrouped and prepared to board the plane. Smooth sailing until our transfer in Chicago. As the gate agent ran our tickets through the machine, she told Wade he needed to return to the counter and speak with another agent because he wasn’t checked in (the three of us had all checked in together!). ARUGH! She encouraged Emma and Diana to go ahead and board, but they refused on the off chance that the man with the passports and the money was unable to do so. Wade’s seat had been given away (anger exacerbated here by the fact that a couple of days before Wade had called to confirm our seat assignments only to find out that the seats on our original itinerary had been given away and at that point he secured three seats together) Although he was assigned another seat on the same flight, it was still frustrating as it was not near the other family members. Fortunately, a solo traveler was seated in the row in front of the Watkins girls and agreed to switch places with Wade. Once we’d taken to the not-so-friendly skies, we discovered that Emma’s in-flight entertainment system was malfunctioning. Thus, those Disney Channel programs and kids music stations we’d promised her were inaccessible from her seat. Diana swapped places with her and finally forced Emma to take off her headphones and get some sleep. She managed to eek out about three hours, which was more than anyone else in the family scored. There was honestly less legroom on this flight than on the puddle jumper we’d taken from Tulsa to Chicago. Once we landed at London Heathrow, the frustrations subsided and we headed to Waterloo Station to wait for our Eurostar train to Paris. In the meantime we had a brief meeting with Lucie March from Regent’s College London, where Wade will be teaching the summer class, to iron out a few details. Breakfast and several games of Uno later (Mom was nodding off between turns) we finally boarded the Eurostar. Our arrival at the Holiday Inn Disneyland Park came about 24 hours after we’d left Stillwater. Now the fun begins!