Hello Cincinnati!!

Like the picture shows, we finally made it back home (I did not take this picture but thought it was appropriate!) Even when we were finally on the final plane heading to CVG, I think I was still doubtful that we would actually land in Cincinnati. But here we are. Home sweet home for real this time!

After trying to sleep for a couple hours, I got up and moving around 4:30 or so. I found out that Chick-Fil-A opened at 5:00 so I headed that way to get some sandwiches to get us started. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 7:25 so we wanted to make sure we got to our gate in plenty of time. We had to make our way to the train in the airport to get from Concourse A to Concourse D. We got there with plenty of time to spare and were issued our new boarding passes to begin making our way to Cincinnati. The flight to Charlotte took off, short flight from Atlanta and before we knew it, we were hustling through Charlotte's airport looking for our final gate! All seemed like it was going like clockwork. Gina and I took a walk to find a snack and when we came back, the board showed that our flight was now DELAYED by an hour!!! OMG!!! REALLY? Apparently a maintenance issue so I guess we can't complain that we were delayed. After about 15 minutes, they announced that our gate had been switched. Now, when we arrived in Charlotte at our gate in the "A's", it was pretty clear we had a haul to get to our next gate which was in the "E's" and was literally at the very end of the "E" concourse - E32. So they switched us to "E19"! Needless to say, we've been doing plenty of walking!

It all was worth it, we found our new gate, boarded the plane on time although we were delayed a bit taking off just because of all the traffic. We finally touched down at about 12:45 or so. We finally made it!

A quick funny for the day - while waiting in the plane in Charlotte, we received a text from Justin, one of Cameron's friends saying to call him ASAP. He and his family had finally gotten to CVG from Jacksonville (another group that was stuck) and he wanted to know where we were because of luggage was sitting at the airport! We were wondering when we would see all of our bags but they actually got home before us!

Well, it was an incredible trip and I am so happy that I went and that Gina was able to go with us. We all had a great time and saw so many incredible sites. I'm not sure any of us will be ready to jump back on a plane or bus any time soon but it was all worthwhile!

I hope the rest of our travelling buddies finally made it home by last night - we know of a few that were still trying yesterday evening. One had made it from New York to Chicago but maintenance issues had her stuck there. Another family were just leaving Atlanta at around 6:00 p.m. to fly to Detroit and then hopefully home.

Thanks for following along and for having to deal with the typos, etc. since I was updating mostly from my phone.

So long for now . . . until Italy 2013!!!!!!!