SEPTEMBER 13
Hurricane Florence at our heels, we cancelled our flight out of Charlotte and for a scary 20 hours had no idea how we’d get to Athens in time to catch the boat and take our (no refund!) cruise (“It’s not cruising, it’s yachting.”) across three seas to Dubrovnik.
Laina, our committed travel agent and Gretchen’s dear friend, was 15 frantic hours trying to find alternate flights. Thursday, after her full day of teaching, Gretchen and I met in the Blacksburg Middle School parking lot and headed toward the interstate prepared to drive to Roanoke, NYC, DC, or even Toronto. We drove ‘pedal to the metal,’ knowing only to head North, while Laina clicked around and managed to book us Roanoke to DC (for an overnight), DC to Philly to Athens. Four extra hours in Reagan Airport and five extra in Philly, but we landed in Athens at the same time we would have landed without the 12 extra hours in transit. Scary Steve and his yellow car were waiting for us.