Ready, Set . . . . Stop!

The day started sunny and cool.  A pleasant start to the next phase of our adventure.  A leisurely morning, with the girls getting ready for church.  We packed on Saturday, so all we had to do was get dressed and ready to go by 11:00 am.  Jim was on time, we got out of town in good shape, and headed to Atlanta.  Arrived at the airport, checked in, went through security, got to the gate and camped out.  About a half an hour before boarding time, they made an announcement that they were having trouble getting the fuel in the plane, and boarding would be delayed 10 minutes or so.  My thought was, "take all the time you need! We are about to fly over the Atlantic Ocean.  Put LOTS of fuel on the plane". Ten minutes later, they came back on and said they were still having trouble fueling the plane, and it would be another 20-30 minutes.  Hmmmm.  But right on time, we stated boarding.  Everyone was on the plane, carry-on stuff all stowed, final checks being done . . . And all the power went off.  Normally the power blinks a little when you go from auxiliary power to internal power, but this was a no kidding total power loss.  And it got warm fast!  But in maybe five minutes, power was restored.  The warning flashers started going off in my head, and i started praying for our safety.  Fuel problem and electrical problems?  I didn't want either of these over the ocean.  But then, just a few minutes later, the Captain came on and said there were too many mistakes (maybe just a poor choice of words by a German pilot?) and they were canceling the flight - sorry for the inconvenience - everyone get off the plane - thank you.  Everyone quietly got off, headed back to the check- in counter, calm chaos ensued for hours as people tried to get hotel vouchers ( one line, if you want to call it that), and changed flights in the other line.  I got my hotel voucher, a piece of paper with a 1-888 number for Lufthansa, and headed for the door.  Since we were at the international terminal, we had to pack ourselves into a shuttle to the domestic side, unload, fight our way onto the hotel shuttle, get off, get a room, get some dinner, call Lufthansa and finally make it to bed shortly after midnight.  Not a great start to our trip, but God did honor our request for a SAFE trip.  So we start again on Monday.

Here is a picture of the new international terminal, if you have not seen it yet.