Germany Part 2

Our flights to Germany were overnight flights. St. Louis, MO to Chicago, IL to Frankfurt, Germany. The pilot has the final say as to what and who gets on his plane. As we were waiting in line to board the plane the pilot called us over to talk to him. In his opinion it was going to be too hot in Chicago for Lady to wait for our flight to Germany. He refused to put Lady on his plane. We were stunned. Totally speechless. We tried explaining that this wasn't just a vacation flight for us, we were moving there for 3 years. My parents had already left the airport. We didn't know what to do. He said we could try the next day and hope it would be cooler but John had a report date in Germany that we couldn't be late for.

The pilot said he would hold the flight for 15 minutes so we could decide what to do...thanks. We knew that my folks were going to visit my sister after they dropped us off since she lives close to the airport. So our first call was to her trying to track them down. While I was talking to her my folks got there. I was so stressed out by then that all I could do was to cry so John took over and made the arrangements. A very nice supervisor from United would take Lady to her office until my parents could get back. Our 15 minutes were up and we had to get on the plane. We boarded the plane, took our seats and I cried the entire flight to Chicago.

By the time we made it to Chicago I was a complete mess. I felt like I was being torn apart. At that point I didn't want to get on the plane for Germany. Lucky for us my brother lives in Chicago. He was waiting for us at the gate. (This was before 9/11 when you could still do that.) My mom had gotten a hold of him at the airport and filled him in on what was going on. He was able to tell me that my parents had picked up Lady and she was safe and sound. That made it some what better but it was hard to processes everything before our flight overseas. We were cutting our connection close because the pilot had held the flight for us. So my brother knew right where to go and he rushed us through the airport.

More hugs, kisses and goodbyes and we were on the plane crossing the pond. Rob fell right to sleep and slept the whole flight over there. Our sponsors were waiting for us at Frankfurt and all our luggage made it there OK. Now we just had a 3 hour ride to the base, get checked in and figure out where to go from there. We didn't have our van yet or our household goods or our dog but we had each other and we were finally in Germany.