I awoke at 6:15 after returning to my room at 1:00 to pack until 2:00.
After a cafeteria breakfast, which I ate with Lindsay Shields, I walked
over to maintainence to get the two vans and bring them to the Moore Science
parking lot. Then I drove over to Margaret’s place and picked her
up. Students were already starting to gather at the vans by the time
we got back to campus. Wendy Worthington told me her passport still
had not come but that Jan Blalock had gone up to the Post Office to see
if it had arrived over night. It had!
We were delayed 15 minutes waiting for Tami who overslept but finally
we were underway. We drove out on U.S. 64 and took NC 281 down to
SC 11. The view over Lake Jocassee was beautiful without any leaves
on the trees.
After a pit stop, we got on I-85 and headed toward Atlanta. At about mile 232 the other van disappeared. We waited a few minutes before driving back to discover they had had a high-speed blowout on their right rear tire. A state trooper was there when we arrived. Jof Mehaffey, who was driving, saved the day by guiding it onto the shoulder up against a guardrail… no damage was done except for the destroyed tire. It was a brand new Firestone tire. The tire was changed within 30 minutes and we were on our way again. Our delay caused us to arrive at the airport late but the flight was delayed 1½ hours so all was copesetic. We slowly checked in. Another 15 minutes was added to the delay. American Airlines assured us the Miami-San José flight would be held for us. They lied and didn’t hold the plane for us. Instead, we were attended by complete idiots, who put us on a later flight that only had 17 open seats. I continued on with the group while Margaret, Lindsay, Brian, and Jof stayed in Miami to take the morning flight to San José. At least I got to fly in 1st class as did Wendy and Mike. We cleared customs and picked up our bags. The IAU bus met us but a thief disguised himself as an employee, got on the bus, helped students store their gear, and made off with Lauren’s fanny pack. It contained everything important: passport, credit cards, plane ticket, cash, driver’s license. We stayed at the Hotel Edelweiss run by an Austrian and American.
They helped us contact the appropriate authorities to start the process of recovering from the theft of Lauren's valuables. The hotel ia a very nice place with dark hardwood floors and antique furniture. At the restaurant
across the street we had a beer and then turned in at midnight.
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