November 15th/16th, 2007 - Thursday/Friday
Things got going with a bang Thursday morning as we rushed to complete all we needed to do before leaving for England.
It was one of those mornings where you are laying peacefully in bed one minute, and the next your heart is pumping wildly,
full of adrenaline, as you realize the emmense amount of stuff you have to do before the day is over. This included
finishing up our packing...which was a little bit of a nightmare. I tend to be an over-packer, having been trained by my
parents to prepare for all possible situations...I have trouble packing for a two week trip, so six weeks was a major challenge
for me! I did manage it though and even got our suitcases to zip. As I was getting ready to move them downstairs by the
front door, I realized that one of them was quite heavy...maybe a little TOO heavy...upon weighing said bag I discovered
that it was in fact tipping the scale at 53 pounds. This is all fine and dandy, except for the fact that the weight limit
for bags is 50 pounds. Extra weight incurs extra fees...which we really wanted to avoid. So I madly began to try to shuffle
things around in suitcases and figure out a way to have my carefully packed items still fit well.
Meanwhile, Steve got on the phone to US Airways in an attempt to discover the official "baggage rules" in hopes that it
might shed some light on what we could do. To our surprise they informed us that since Steve is a Chairman's Preffered
member of US Airways (the highest level you can get) he was allowed to check 3 bags instead of the usual 2. This meant that
our problem was solved with one additional bag and all was well with the world.
Suz picked us up to take us to the airport around 3:30 and we headed down to Charlotte with mostly clear roads. It didn't
take us long to get checked in and through security either. By the time we got past all the metal detectors and x-ray machines
we were both pretty tired. We decided to get a snack at Chili's before heading to our gate. I am amazed that there aren't more
accidents at that Chili's...they seem to thrive on lots of tables packed very close together and seem to completely ignore the
fact that virtually everyone in their restaurant also has with them a rolling suitcase, a carry on bag and various other airplane
items such as oddly shapped pillows and special sleep masks. Where you are meant to put this while you are dining is beyond me,
and it usually ends up being an acrobatic feat to get your things stowed out of the way while you try to cram yourself into your
seat. Still, we got a chance to have some "real" food before embarking on our flight.
 After dinner we went to our gate and didn't have to wait too long before boarding the plane. It was nice because the plane
wasn't completly full, so it didn't take as much time to get everyone settled. We departed on time and for the most part had
a fairly smooth and easy flight. This smooth and easy flight didn't include as much sleep as either of us would have liked. The
flight attendants seemed very reluctant to turn off the cabin lights, making it difficult to rest. When they finally did dim the
interior, it was only for a brief period. Then the captain came on the PA and said that planes coming the opposite way were
reporting moderate to bad turbulence ahead, so he turned on all the lights and made everyone sit up and had the flight attendants
come through to check that everyone's seat belts were fastened. This put me and Steve on edge, since neither of us particularly
enjoys airplane turbulence. Luckily, as we carried on, the plane simply went "bump! shudder shudder" once or twice and that was
it. So we got off without much trouble.
After that the flight was smooth sailing, but again it was only a couple of hours before the cabin lights came back on and
the flight attendants began serving breakfast...a weird "buttermilk roll" that was neither a roll nor a donut but was some odd
cross between the two, and just enough coffee to take the edge of my tireness away but not to make me completely awake either.
We landed at Gatwick at 8:15 AM GMT, 5 hours ahead of the east coast and 8 hours ahead of the west coast. So to us it felt like
3 AM.
 We had no trouble at border protection or customs, just a minor delay in getting our luggage (it must have been packed on
the bottom!) and we went to rendezvous with our taxi driver who would take us the further 2 hours to get to Steve's parents
house. Our taxi driver was nice and loaded us up into his car with all our luggage. He warned us that he might need to stop
for gas because he was getting low on fuel. I had just fallen asleep in the car when I felt us leaving the "motorway" (the
equivalent of our Interstate system). He told us we were in Winchester and he was going to get some "petrol" (gas).
 The petrol station was HUGE with at least 10 pumping areas and 5 cars waiting in line for each of them. Our driver seemed pretty
upset that it was taking so long and kept sighing deeply as though he was very frustrated. About that time Steve and I began
to notice an odd smell in the car. Both of us assumed that someone in front of us was having engine trouble and that it was
wafting into our car through the air vents. That was until we began to notice that the air in the car seemed to be getting
thicker, like the world was slowly being bathed in fog...we heard the driver say "oh dear, that's not good is it?" and we looked
up to see black smoke pouring out of OUR engine, not the car in front of us. It then began billowing inside the car through
the ventilation system. My first inclination at that point would have been to turn the car off...afterall, if the engine was
starting to catch fire it probably wasn't the best idea for the car to be sitting inside a fuel station next to 10 gas pumps...
but the driver kept the engine running until we could get out of the row of traffic waiting to gas up and across the road into
the "car park" (parking lot). Luckily he did this, as if he had turned off the car there is no telling whether or not we would
have ever got it restarted! We rolled down our windows and hung our heads out to clear our lungs, while the driver sighed and
pulled out his cell phone to call his boss, and to call the RAC (the British equivalent of AAA).
 After speaking to a few people he told us it would be a little while until he found out what to do, so he sent us across the
road to Tesco (kind of like Target) which luckily had a little cafe in the front. Steve and I sat in there for a little bit
and warmed up with a cup of tea before we went back to see what was going on. Within a few minutes another taxi arrived from a
different taxi company to take us the rest of the way. So, we unloaded the broken cab and packed all of our gear into the new
car and got back on the road. It took us about 45 minutes to get to Steve's parents house and boy, was I glad to see it! It
was defitinely a welcome relief to step inside and be able to rest for a bit. Needless to say, it was quite a day!
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