The Traveling Steve's

Anniversary weekend in Roanoke – part 1

It’s Friday night, and Dos and I flew up to Roanoke, Virginia on Friday for my parents 60th wedding anniversary celebration.  IMG_4181 I started my day early with my return flight from work in Milwaukee, and had to first fly home to Orlando before then flying on to Roanoke.  I had two separate tickets; one for work from Orlando to Milwaukee roundtrip, and the other for our personal weekend trip from Orlando to Roanoke, roundtrip. I didn’t plan it that way, but my flight from Charlotte to Orlando, and then back from Orlando to Charlotte was the same plane and flight crew!  Here’s a pic flying into Orlando, fortunately the storms held off and we weren’t delayed flying out.IMG_4185

I met Dos in Orlando, and then took the same USAirways A321 plane back to CLT, for our connecting flight to Roanoke. IMG_4191 IMG_4190

As Murphy’s Law would have it, we get to Charlotte and find our flight to Roanoke is delayed 2 hours.  We had dinner in the airport at Phillips Seafood restaurant, and then went to the USAirway’s (Admirals’s Club) to check on our delayed flight.

Long story short, we ended renting a car from National Car Rental and driving back to Roanoke.  The delayed flight had been delayed over 7 hours, and we had no confidence it would make it to Roanoke tonight, and if not we wouldn’t get there until tomorrow late afternoon as the other flights were full.  We drove the 3 and a half hours to Roanoke, and ironically arrived at almost the same exact time as our delayed flight landed!   USAirways Express (actually Piedmont Airlines) switched the aircraft and made up some of the lost time, but we were glad we drove as we had no idea if the flight would make it or not.  We waited at the baggage claim for our luggage, and spoke with another man who did the same exact thing – rented a car and drove to Roanoke!  We gathered our luggage, and drove to the Hilton Garden Inn in Roanoke, arriving a little after midnight.

This is my parent’s 60th wedding anniversary, and we are also celebrating my ‘baby’ sister Jenni’s 50th birthday!  Should be a fun weekend!

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