I'M HERE !!! FINALLY...

Well, so much for a smooth start this trip. What a day! Spent pretty much all day at the airport yesterday, waiting for further announcements on the departure time of my delayed flight. The part that was brought in from Amsterdam needed to fix the plane took forever to get to Brussels airport. Eventually (at about 4:30PM) Northwest Airlines decided to cancel the flight and reschedule departure for Sunday morning 8AM. I had worked my way into the hospitality lounge of Northwest Airlines and was able to leave a message here Saturday, send out some emails and relax a bit (with free drinks and food).

All passengers were put up in hotels for the night. I ended up at the Sofitel near the airport. Very nice place,.. and it should be for the regular single room rate was € 400 a night! We were also offered dinner and got one free phone call. I talked to Pete Emmons (Blue Devils) explaining what had happened.

Worst case scenario would be I’d miss hooking up with the corps in the Atlanta area completely and instead maybe reschedule my flight to Dallas, which would be their next major stop (on THURSDAY!!!!)

Since I couldn’t go on the internet at the hotel myself, I also called my brother, explained what the situation was and asked him if he could check various possibilities on the internet: other flights, new connecting flights to Atlanta, Amtrak, and the MARTA train schedule from Atlanta airport.
He called me back after dinner and came up with the solution I now actually ended up doing.

Flight to Detroit, then a connecting flight to Atlanta at 1:32, getting me to Atlanta at 3:38, taking the Marta train northbound all the way to Doraville. This is only 20 miles from Alpharetta (where the corps is housed).
I informed Pete this would be the best option, and hoped someone could pick m e up there before the corps would hit the road again on their way to the next stop: tonight’s show in Jacksonville Alabama. Then it’s on to Tupelo Mississippi.

And thus it happened.,… well,.. sort of… Trouble started in Brussels already. We got a wake-up call at 5AM, a shuttle bus picked us up at 5:30, since NWA wanted us at the airport no later than 6AM. The line for checking in obviously was insane. And even worse,.. the ground personnel didn’t show up until 6:45. Our flight to Detroit had another 2 hour delay, for we left the runway only little after 10!!



My new boarding pass for the connecting flight showed the flight mentioned above (1:32 from Detroit), but there was no way I was going to make that. It was going to be an interesting challenge getting to the right place in time today.

Northwest will get a lot of complaint forms regarding this delay/cancellation. Let’s see if we can get some sort of refund from them. A free flight would be nice!

Too bad I missed the Atlanta show last night though. Had hoped to see the performances. The scores are kept awfully close at the moment. Friday night in Murfreesboro there was less than a point spread among the top-3. Blue Devils also the Atlanta show.

I also missed seeing my Jubal-buddy Erik van Doorn, who is marching with the Glassmen (from Toledo). His parents had given me some goodies to take along for him. Oh well,.. will see him some time this week.
Had some interesting conversations coming here and at the airport in Brussels. One of the passengers was going to take a 3-week motorcycle tour on the West Coast (on his own!) visiting a lot of National Parks I have been to myself. That’s something I’d like to do one day as well!

Talked a lot about Belgian beers with someone from the Eeklo area. On the plane I was sharing row 34 with a very friendly student, Angelica, from FU who is originally from Columbia and had just enjoyed a visit to Europe. The other lady in row 34 is from Steekene in Belgium, on her way to visit her daughter in Gainesville Florida.

Once in Detroit (12:30) we got the standard Immigration and customs procedure (which takes forever and is way too overdone). At the transfer desk I was issued a new boarding pass. Departure time: 3:15PM. Knowing the corps would leave Alpharetta at 6:30, this could still work out, cutting it very short though!

Tried to call Pete, got the voice mail, and got a call back from him immediately. The flight eventually left Detroit airport at about 4PM, a bumpy trip to Atlanta got me there at about 6PM. This would become a problem, so I improvised and rerouted my trip on the train to met up with BD. I called Pete and told him what I thought would be the best bet,.. taking the MARTRA train to the station furthest west and closest to the I-20, instead of going north first and have them wait for me for about an hour.


Well,.. it has never been such a tight squeeze. I get to the Marta station at E Holmes, walk out to the parking lot and see the support staff bus pull into the parking lot on my right. I even beat them to the station.
So my tour started a day late, buy hey,… I’m here now.

Blue Devils at Jacksonville (Alabama)

Got to see the show in Jacksonville (Alabama) tonight, after a 2 hour drive from Atlanta. Only saw Cavaliers and Blue Devils. Great shows!!!

Enjoy,


HK