Leaving on a Jet Plane…

We left Raleigh Durham airport on Friday morning, January 16, 2015.

Funny story before we left Raleigh. As we went through security, Charles and I actually got to do the easy one where you don’t have to take off your shoes and separate out the liquids, etc. I went through first, and he was stopped by the TSA agent, and they were chatting. I went back to see what was going on. Turns out she was a Witness, saw his badge and asked where we were headed. She excitedly told us her name and to look for friends of hers serving in Ecuador to say Hi. (Of course I forgot her name or the friends. Oh well.)

During our conversation, we didn’t notice the other agents had stopped to do a special search on one of our carry-on bags. As she opened an outside pocket, I was horrified to see two pretty good sized kitchen knives! I had not even checked those pockets because I never use them. But that explains what happened to those knives I had lost. I was so embarrassed. I guess the sister told them we were ok. But, I feared that might put us on the watch list now. 😉

A little more excitement while waiting for our flight, I noticed a man drop some money. As he kept walking, I had to yell to get his attention, since he had headphones on. As I told him what happened, he turned to go back, and just then a lady came along and swooped up the $50 bill. He approached her and told her it was his money, to which she replied no it wasn’t. I called across to her that yes, it was – I had seen him drop it. She grudgingly handed it over, and he looked at me, surprised and grateful, and thanked me repeatedly as he hurried off. A lady near me witnessed the whole incident and we had a little conversation about honesty in this day and age. Then I realized this is when one of those new little JW business cards would have come in real handy. I could have just handed one to the guy as he ran off. Learned my lesson to try to have some ready in the future.

So, we finally got on the plane and settled in for the 2 hr flight to Miami. The flight went fine – altho a little cramped. Fortunately, Steve, who is 6’8″ was able to score the exit row, along with Vero.

Excitement was in the air as we realized we were actually really on our way!