As I begin to write, I’m realizing that my audience for this will be a variety of ages and persons with different concerns. Some have children and grandchildren who will be reading about travel. Others will be looking for interesting things about places we will visit in Liberia as we have time. So take from this what has meaning to you.
Duane and I got to sleep early Monday night. We set our alarms for 4:30 am. We dressed for travel, did our last packing, had breakfast then got things in the van. It was easier using it because of the big suitcases. Two of the suitcases were being taken to friends in Liberia so we each had two suitcases and two smaller bags to take on the plane. We left home around 6 am.
We got to the Lansing International Airport in DeWitt by 8 am. We were the first to arrive. We had to leave our coats in the van because we wouldn’t be needing them. Rev. Paul Perez, Conference Staff, was next to come. Rev. Jon Reynolds from Cass Community UMC, Rev. Lindsey Hall Associate Pastor at Birmingham First UMC, and Rev. Ava Euper from Elsie UMC soon joined us.
We all had to check in because we were going on an international flight. We showed our passports and got our luggage weighed. We got our boarding passes for four flights then sent our luggage through the security scanner. Next we went to the TSA security area. It took a little while to go through. They were looking carefully. Soon we all were done.
We went down to Gate 5 to wait for the flight. We began to get more acquainted. We all have United apps on our cellphones that are telling us about our flights. The flight was scheduled to leave at 10:25 am. It was a small plane so it didn’t take long to board. We were seated in three rows of two seats each. We were on time taking off but arrived in Chicago a half hour early.
That was good because our next flight would have been leaving in 45 minutes. As it was, it had been delayed a half hour giving us more time to get there. We even had time to get some food for lunch. Some got some caramel corn from Garretts – a favorite of those who had attended Garret Evangelical Seminary. I got my personal favorite – a Auntie Anne’s soft pretzel. Later we had a little more substantial food.
The flight to Newark finally boarded passengers and was ready to go at 12:45 pm. We sat on the tarmac awhile waiting to take off. This time our seats were still two by two but spread out in different places. There were screens at every seat showing all kinds of TV shows and some movies. I slept part of the time finally catching up on some sleep.
We arrived at Newark ahead of time – the wind was pushing us. We had an 11 minute walk to our next gate. We went from C72 to C 139. As we reached our gate, we greeted Rev. Mike Seymour, Jon’s grandfather, who was going with us. Our flight is not until 7 pm so everyone is either visiting or studying or walking. Or in my case writing this. Stay tuned for more adventures.