Croissant withdrawl

It was one of those days in which the first half of the trip went a little too smoothly.

A beautiful morning in Pompadour; an easy drive to Limoge airport. A short hop to Paris, then an unusually simple transfer at Charles De Gaulle, a place that is not exactly famous for easy connections. A long but pleasant Air France flight to Atlanta, which contrasted in service to our eastbound Delta flight in the areas of food (which was a gentle transition between French cuisine and travel food), wine (French, and included, instead of Delta’s new policy of providing bad wine and charging for it on international flights), and entertainment (an interesting and seemingly endless playlist on all their in-flight music channels). We even sped smoothly through Customs and Immigration in Atlanta.

Then we looked out the window.

It was ugly.

We headed for the Crown Room, encamped ourselves by the window, and although we were freezing from the over zealous air conditioning, watched a long line of thunderstorms that over the next several hours repeatedly shut down the Atlanta hub. Oodles of flights were delayed and diverted, and the Crown Room was bustling.

I stealthily lay down by the window to stretch my back, which was kinked from many hours of flying. It felt surprisingly good to lie on the floor, and I realized that the beds we’d been sleeping in in France were not that much softer than the carpet. I nearly fell asleep, but that sort of thing is frowned upon in the Crown Room.

Our Atlanta/San Diego flight, scheduled to leave at 8:40, was pushed back, first to 9:30, then to 10:30. The bar in the Crown Room closed. It’s a bad sign when you are in a Crown Room later than the bartender.

By 11:00, the air conditioning finally froze us out of our haven, and we went down to the concourse, where the average flight delay was about 3 hours. Our flight finally left at 1:15 am East Coast time. We got home around 3:30 am San Diego time, more than 24 hours after embarking on our journey home.

More photos tomorrow. Today, we pick up the famous Tinto, take showers that don’t involve hand wands and do some laundry. And shop for food, too…. I already miss the marvelous croissants.