Getting There, Part 1

We were up early (for me) at 6:10 to immediately get cleaned up and ready to travel. I was emotional about packing up Rufus, Brigid and Lizzie to go to Alpha Boarding; I always feel like the worst parent when I'm leaving them at the kennel, even though I obsessed about picking the best kennel for them... Brigid was manic about the whole thing, Rufus a little confused, and Lizzie very unhappy.

After entrusting our babies to Alpha, we drove to SalesPage, where we parked the truck and walked to the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport with our two checked bags and our carryons. As usual, security checks here were easy and fast, and then we sat around and waited to board for an uneventful flight to Detroit. At Detroit, we waited again, a 4-hour layover. We ate at a Guinness pub, which had acceptable food and beer, though we may have committed sacrilege by having Shorts beers rather than Guinness. In another nod to the locals, the joint has Zingerman's bread.

We boarded a 777 to Amsterdam, sitting in row 41, middle and window seats. I am pissed about this, as our tickets were to be in about row 11 in Economy Comfort, purchased last November. Delta has kept changing the plane and randomly assigning us to new seats, and somewhere about the fifth or sixth such change, they not only split us up, but screwed us out of Economy Comfort. At one point, I’d gotten on the phone with an agent and managed to get us exit row seats at the front of a compartment, for the extra leg room, but then THOSE seats were changed, too. It isn’t clear why this kept happening, but I can’t help but wonder if the special screwing had something to do with the base tickets being purchased with Score Card reward points.