This is an epic picture I took from the plane window right before it touched down in Atlanta. It was almost as exciting getting home as it was for the last 2 weeks traveling around Italy.
If you’ve ever been in Charles De Gaulle changing flights, you’ll know it’s a two hour run-as-fast-as-you-can-
My bionic knee said no way and we managed to miss our flight by 5 minutes…which was super epic because then we also had to hike across another terminal to get our flight changed. Which we did and that flight boarded in 35 minutes. So there was more running.
At this point there was some sweating. It wasn’t pretty. We managed to make that flight, seated back in the cattle section of the flight although we had paid for preferred seats, and I watch television for 9 hours.
By the time we landed in Atlanta it was 11:00 pm in America 4:00 a.m. in Italy and we were again an hour late. So there was more running. And more sweating. This entails getting our luggage going through customs and passport control and then rechecking our luggage to Minneapolis.
We got into two lines. Both of them were the wrong lines. We finally found the right line, put our baggage back on the right plane, and stood in the right security line. And it was now midnight. We raced through the Atlanta terminal, jumped on the tram, went to the final terminal (terminal T which I think is located in South Carolina), and then ran to the appropriate gate which was now again closing.
We had about 15 people in our hapless group from Rome traveling to Minneapolis and a young skinny girl who could still run forged ahead and practically laid down on the Skyway Bridge to keep them from closing the gate. I think I owe her my life.
We managed to get a board that plane but by this time they’ve given away all of our seats and so we were scattered around the plane like orphans. I managed to get the middle seat between a couple. It was a little weird to me that they sat on the window and the aisle with myself between them. It wasn’t pretty. I’d been traveling for 24 hours, I had been sweating a lot, and I looked like I’d spent the night in a dumpster (probably spelled that way too.) They proceeded to ignore me (which was fine) and I watched Top Gun Maverick on the way home because I couldn’t sleep. I love that movie. I wasn’t sure they were traveling together until we landed and the woman turned to her husband/partner/brother? And asked him “can you get my bag down?” He answered yes, got up, got her bag down, and then left it in the aisle. When our row disembarked he strode about 25 paces in front of her, leaving her in the dust.
Now, granted, I was slow and could have been blocking the way, but when we got to the jet bridge, she made no move to catch up with him. They’ve become a couple of characters in my head and I still have questions.
To our great joy, our luggage managed to find us. Our travel mates however, we’re not so lucky and by the time we all arrived up at the Uber pickup spot there were no Ubers to be found. Then again it was 3:00 a.m.
We did manage to finally find a Lyft and we arrived home around 4:00 a.m. I was in bed by 4:30 but of course that was 10:30 Italy time and my body said I needed a croissant. I slept for a couple hours, woke, showered, and lamented the length of my lawn. And then I remembered I had two free books launching into Kindle Unlimited this week….
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Two epically fun, free books that I couldn’t wait for you guys to be able to read!
The first one is wait for Watch Over Me, set in Far East Russia, and written back when I was a missionary.
It’s a thriller about a missionary who sees a murder and must trust the FSB to keep her safe. It was my first real thriller and it got nominated for a couple big awards. It’s one of my all-time favorite books. It’s also the first of a three book series called Global Guardians.
The second free book is Knox which is the first in the Montana Marshalls series. If you continue the series you will eventually see all of the characters from the Global Guardian series. So, in a way, the two series are connected.
Download both books for FREE on amazon (until 5/26 for Watch Over me, and 5/27 for Knox) and then you can get the others in both series on Kindle Unlimited.
So, now that I’ve spent the last day cleaning my house, trying not to fall asleep at 3:00 in the afternoon and working out the plot of Creed, the last book in the Minnesota Marshall series, I think I’m ready for a vacation again. Luckily, I was able to get lots of great ideas to finish up the series (my notebook is also full of crazy story ideas from my tours in Italy from an under city catacomb / wine cellar tour, to a small forgotten monastery in Tuscany.) I can’t wait to fill in the blanks.
Anyway, pick up the books! I hope you enjoy them. Thank you for reading! Here’s to more crazy wonderful adventures. And to hot showers.
Blessings,
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