I got out of bed at 6:30 , put Maxx outside, had breakfast, and took a shower, then I finished the last minute aspect of my packing and make sure that Stephanie was up. Celeste arrived at 8:15 . We took our time loading up the Trooper and then went to the bank to get some more money. The news that morning held two things of interest: 1) the 9.0 Earthquake off of Sumatra and the resulting tsunami and 2) the story of numerous Comair cancellations and thousands of US Airways passengers losing their luggage.

Steph dropped us off at GSP and we checked our bags to Miami , (on Delta). Our flight took off a bit late. I could see our house as we ascended. The flight was easy. We arrived in Atlanta and got to our new gate just as boarding started. The skies were clear as we flew to Orlando . I noted numerous sinkhole alignments as we flew over greater Orlando .

We spent about an hour on the ground in Orlando before boarding the flight to Miami . We spent another 25 minutes on the taxiway before finally taking off. It was overcast in Miami . We were given the wrong baggage claim belt. I told Celeste to check out another where she found our luggage. We were heroes to the other passengers on our flight. We ran into Dave Funderburk who was looking for his bags from his US Airways flight. Celeste and I went upstairs to check in with Aerolineas Argentinas and met Jackie Cockburn and Amanda Green who said most people has already gone to the gate. Dave came up and said US Airways had lost his bags. I went with him to the lost baggage office and discussed our options but they really had lost his bags.

We checked him in and went to our gate. The students were all strewn out on the floor in a big group. Guto started a round of applause as we approached. It turns out that both Amandas also lost their baggage. Amanda Osterhaus had traveled on US Airways and Amanda Green on American Airlines. I went around and met everyone and pretty soon we were called to board our flight and for the first time of the day actually took off on time. The flight was not full. Adam and I had 4 bulkhead seats for the two of us.

Dinner was served around 10:00 . The quality of the food was not as good as it has been in the past. And horrors, they served a cheap Spanish wine! Eventually they ran out of that and started serving a decent Argentine wine followed by a whiskey aperitif. The movie “Cat Woman” started showing but was cut off after 45 minutes, then “King Arthur” started. It was so bad I just put on the blind fold and tried to sleep.