Space-A Part 3 The Return Trip

I have posted about my Space-A trip that I took last summer.  Space-A part 1 and Space-A part 2.  But I haven’t posted about the return trip.  Since it is almost summer again I figured I better post it before I forget too much 🙂

After spending a wonderful summer in California it was time to head back to Germany.  Instead of trying to get a flight out of Travis AFB which is about 8 hours from where I was, I took a commercial flight to Charleston, SC to meet up with my friend who was heading back to Germany too.  I had a hotel booked in the city so when we got to the airport we just had to get the van to the hotel.  I was so tired once we got in that I was glad my plan was to meet my friend the next day.

The next morning I woke up and called a van to take us to the Air Force base.  He picked us up and dropped us off right in front of the Pax Terminal where you catch your flights.  Inside the terminal they do have a kids room with toys, cribs and tvs.  That was nice.  We chilled there for a few hours and then decided to get something to eat.

I decided to walk the boys to Burger King.  Well it was about a 10 minute walk and we get there and it was closed.  Keep in mind it was the end of August in Charleston so it was very hot and humid but also suppose to rain.  Also keep in mind that you must have all your bags with you at all times.  Not fun to walk anywhere!

We went back to the Pax terminal and just decided we would get stuff from the vending machines until my friend got there.  Well the problem with that is that it only took $1.00 bills and I had a bunch of $5s and no one would give me change.  It was so frustrating.  I asked the guy at the counter if there was any place to get change and he told me the bowling ally.

So we got all our stuff and headed there.  Another 10-15 minute walk.  We get to the bowling ally just in time for it to start pouring down rain.   They had a little food place in there so I decided to feed us and just relax.  After we ate we bowled a little bit.  I think we spent about 3 hours there just killing time.

We made it back to the terminal at about 6ish and I was hoping my friend would be there soon.  Well by 9 she still hadn’t showed.  I was getting worried.  I couldn’t get ahold of her at all.  I didn’t know if I should go for a hotel or wait there.  The boys were getting crazy and I had a major “why did I decide to do this crazy thing?”meltdown.

At about 10pm my friend finally made it.  She had been in a minor car accident and that was why she was later than she had planned.  It was so stressful for both of us that we decided to skip the first flight out they had the next day.  That was probably our mistake but it was what we decided to do at the time.

We ended up having to stay the night in the terminal which was ok for the boys but I hardly slept at all.  The next day we were able to get a hotel on post which was really a house.  It was very nice.  We all got to shower and rest a little bit.

Well what ended up happening was the flight we were trying to get out on kept getting cancelled and changed to the next day.  It was suppose to leave on a Thursday and we finally left on the next Tuesday.  This was so hard and why I would never do Space-A again with small kids.  Just the waiting and wondering, having to find a hotel, not knowing if we were really going to fly each day.  We would call each morning only to find out that the flight had been moved again.  Thank goodness we were together.  I don’t know what I would have done if I was without another adult.

We finally flew into Spangdahlem, Germany 6 days after I had arrived in Charleston.  That was when it got even more frustrating for us.  I will talk about that in the next post.