When I woke up this morning around 5:45, I called the terminal desk to see if they had any good news about Moody pax terminal allowing us to travel all the way through to Rota, Spain. They hadn’t been able to make contact with the Moody terminal but he did update me that roll call had been moved up an hour and was now at 7:30am. 

We quickly took showers, dressed and headed over to the terminal. When we got there, the roll call time was still 0830 and it never did change. I asked about any news and he said they still hadn’t made contact yet. 

About 20 minutes later the young airman came walking towards us and he wasn’t smiling. I remarked that he didn’t look like he was bringing me good news and he said “no, ma’am I’m not. Moody wouldn’t allow you to manifest through to Rota.”

It was a total mood crusher!

We started looking at commercial flights but the cheapest ones headed to any point in Europe was in England for around $1,000. This trip was an experiment to go the cheapest route… free in fact… which hadn’t worked out too well since getting us to Dover for free , so paying that price wasn’t very palatable. As I sat there looking at various combinations on how to get across the pond the cheapest way I could, another lady and couple came over and offered some great tips. One lady said she was taking the MAC flight to Travis AFB and then she would head to Las Vegas where Condor Airlines had flight’s to Germany for $2 something. I started looking and sure enough, Vegas had flights the for Tuesday for $290! I then looked for flights from Philly to Vegas and they were $162! We decided to skip the MAC flight to Travis, Steven had no desire to go to Cali, so I quickly started to book flights for me, Steven and Eugene, our new friend, for this new plan. Steven and I were able to score the last two tickets from Philly to Vegas for that above mentioned amount for today, although the flight was actually out of Trenton-Mercer Airport. And then sure enough, I was able to score two tickets to Frankfurt, Germany for $290 a piece leaving tomorrow, Tuesday and arriving Wednesday at 10:15am! I managed to get Eugene the same ticket to Germany, but unfortunately, the really cheap tickets were gone to get to Vegas, but I was able to score a $265 fare out of Philly for him to Vegas. He arrives a few hours after us but we’ll see each other tomorrow when we all head to Germany. 

The next logistic nightmare was getting ourselves from Dover AFB Space A Terminal to our respective airports. Taxis to each airport were quoted as $185 a piece! The guys were in charge of finding a rental car, but none of the agencies they called wanted to allow a one-way trip. 

So, I took over.

I went through Expedia and booked a rental car online from Budget Rental for the 112 miles trip from Dover to Trenton-Mercer. Granted it was $157, but it was cheaper than paying $185 a person. The taxi for the seven-mile trip to the rental care agency was $30! 

We soon had our car and we were on our way. Ninety minutes later, after dropping off Eugene first at Philly, Steven and I made it to Trenton, where the Russian Budget clerk checked us in, gave us our receipt and said thanks and that he’d give us a ride to the terminal. He then goes to inspect the car. There was a tire check light on, meaning the tire needed air. He made us fill out an incident report. We pointed out that the lending agency knew about it and didn’t seem concerned.  He then said the car stank of smoke and that we weren’t supposed to smoke in the car. Steven did smoke in the car because there was nothing in the contract about smoking, the rental ladies never said anything about not smoking, nor were there any signs in the car warning against doing so. We told the guy that the other clerks never said anything about that and he didn’t say anything else about it. When he dropped us off at the terminal, he handed me a piece of paper and said have a good trip. The ass had recharged Steven’s credit card without our knowledge for an additional fee of $250 for smoking! We called his credit company right away to dispute the charge!

Aside from the rental car debacle at the end, it was a good trip down and there were some good bennies to this plan. 1. Our departure flight took us to Trenton-Mercer where Steve’s younger brother Ron lives, and who he hasn’t seen in the 10 years since their mother’s funeral. Ron met us at Trenton’s tiny little airport and had lunch with us. We were able to hang out for a few hours before our flight which was wonderful.

2. I got an awesome photo of Steven and his brother and 3. We get an entire, unexpected night in  Las Vegas, baby!! 

The adventure continues…. Next stop, Germany!