After a pitiful night and murderous looks from my extremely uncomfortable, exhausted and nicotine deprived husband at 4 a.m., I was starting to REALLY regret not staying in Memphis for Sunday’s flight. He finally went up to the terminal front desk around 6 a.m. and asked if one of the airmen on duty had a lighter he could borrow because he had already ditched his before we left Memphis. One did, and it just so happened that he was a motorcycle rider so when he went out to smoke with Steven they struck up a conversation.

Which was a great move!

The airman let it slip that there was a possible flight leaving Sunday for England but they didn’t know if it would take passengers because of where they would have to land. The passengers would have to walk in from the tarmac and they were concern about passenger luggage. Steven came back excited about this news and we share this new development with our new friend Eugene.

At 8 a.m., the USO opened. It’s an amazing USO… free snacks and drinks, two game rooms, a theater room, pool table, fireplace and lounge area, a quiet room and even a guitar to play, which a departing airman headed to Turkey, used to treat us all to an impromptu concert.

Steven, Eugene and I headed to the theater room in the USO to make use of the comfortable chairs, hoping to be able to rest a bit and perhaps sleep more comfortably until we were able to get into our rooms we booked at the base inn. But a large group of airmen headed to Turkey came in with some time to kill and they all wanted to watch… wait, can you guess?  Top Gun! Unfortunately, Netflix didn’t have the movie so they turned on Limitless which we all started to enjoy when we were kicked out of our comfortable accommodations because a few dog handlers had to board their working dogs in the room and they didn’t want “civilians” to be in the same room as the dogs and as the USO volunteer put it, “men with guns.”

So we all moved to the fireplace area where there were also comfortable easy chairs and we sat around and chatted about what our next move would be. The flight logs still made no mention of the UK flight so we were discussing whether to stick it out or head to Philly for a commercial flight.

About 11:30 a.m., I went up to the front desk to inquire about the possible flight to England, where I was met with blank stares.

“England? Today?”

“No, a flight on Sunday. Supposedly, ya’ll were checking to see if pax seats were going to be released.”

More blank stares. Then furious typing… more stares (probably wondering how I knew about it and they didn’t), whispering back and forth among the other terminal airmen, and after what seemed like forever, the young airman looked at me and said, “There is a mission to Glasgow and they’re taking passengers. Seventy-three confirmed seats. Roll call is at 0300.”

“Can I sign up for this flight?”

“Yes, ma’am. We need ID card and passport.”

I quickly went to tell this good news while trying to contain my excitement. I relayed the news to Steven and Eugene, grabbed my documents and them, and we all headed back to the counter to sign up. I also passed on the news to Billy, another retiree trying to get to Germany in case he wanted to try for the flight.

So now we’re all signed up and we are just waiting for roll call to see if our names will be selected for the trip. I know it’s bad of me, but I’m secretly praying that the families who didn’t make it to Germany on last night’s flight aren’t going to want to get on this one once they know about it.

By 11:37, the flight screen has been updated with the new flight, AND they added another flight for Ramstein, Germany for Monday with a roll call of 1 a.m. with 53 tentative seats. I’m hoping the families will try to take that direct flight instead of Scotland.

We call the Air Force Inn to see if we can check in early to get a shower and some rest, explaining about the 3 a.m. roll call. They are very accommodating and tell us to come on over. So we get rooms, a shower and several hours of sleep. Around 6:30, we’re sitting in the grill at the golf course enjoying a nice meal.

Hubby is back in the room getting more sleep and I’m updating my blog, too excited to think that we may be back on track to be in Europe by the weekend.

We did learned that this flight was unexpected and was coming from Travis AFB. This aircraft had been broken down and was just fixed and so they are hoping that all goes well and will actually take off. My fingers are crossed.

Now, to wait on the 0300 roll call and the 0600 take-off… hopefully, with me on it!

Didn’t I tell ya’ll this would be an adventure!