The Ride Over (Part 2) or...somewhere near fair Verona

Thank God for wonderful people. While I was in Germany, I was trying desperately to get in touch with a family friend, Susan Davis. She's a DODS teacher at the school at Ramstein. She kept trying to get in touch with me, but I had no cell phone. Lousy internet service and no idea when my flight was going to leave. On top of that, they kept ushering us in and out of security. Finally, on the day I left, she tracked me down to say hi. It was wonderful to spend some time with her and she even brought me a coffee, which most of you know is the fastest way to my heart! I actually asked her if she had spoken with my mother before meeting me. I hope to meet up with her on the way home.

Incidentally, Susan's husband Bob is a Guiness Book of World Record holder for the "Longest Snowmobile Journey". Read all about Ironman here

After 2.5 days in Germany we were finally able to leave. Turns out the instrument system at Aviano AB, Italy was down and there was bad weather all over northern Italy. We were finally able to land in Verona, Italy where we offloaded a bunch of passengers and gassed up the jet. They made us get off the plane and stuffed us in a hanger for an hour and a half.

Walking away from the jet

Our not so trusty steed, which carried us (very slowly) from Baltimore, all the way to the Middle East

This is one of those, "I have to take a picture of this because it was very funny at the time" pictures

This is another of those "funny at the time pictures." You probably can't see it but as they were loading the aircraft, all kinds of soft drinks started falling out of the cargo hold. It was pretty funny to watch. A video would have been better.

The flight from Verona took about 5 hours and we landed around 130am. We inprocessed the base and they checked us into our rooms. I finally fell asleep around 530am and slept until noon, when I went into work.