Back at SFO around 7pm, we make our way to the lounge, eat dinner and then hang out until 10ish for our flight.  We are supposed to leave at 11:15, but as it turns out, we are delayed.  Oh man.  You know, of all the flights….we only have a 50 minute connection in IAD and that’s the last flight we want to miss.  Having precious little sleep and a 2 hour drive ahead of us, we want to get to Charlotte as soon as possible.

The delay is because the plane isn’t at the gate yet.  Why you ask?  Well it is anyone’s guess.  The darn thing has been here for 12 hours, sitting somewhere.  And while our gate has changed twice, the last change was hours ago, so it isn’t like they don’t know where the plane should be.  Finally the thing arrives and we quickly board at midnight with our fingers crossed we make our Charlotte plane.  Nothing we can do now but have a drink and go to sleep.  (Even though we paid to upgrade to Economy Plus, the seats were actually Premium Economy (as good as First Class was not so long ago),but that means you don’t get anything for free on this flight – we even have to pay for our drinks.)

It is a really short flight, surprisingly enough, only 4+ hours, which gives us little time to sleep.  But on the plus side, the captain makes good time and gets us in only 20 minutes late. Airport terminal sprint on!

We paid to upgrade so we’d be at the front of the plane to be able to get off quickly, and that strategy paid off.  We also were extremely lucky in that our Charlotte flight was leaving from only 8 gates down the concourse.  That never happens!  We were quite pleased as we fast stepped our way down to the gate, where they had just started the boarding process.  Phew!  Made it!

Then it was a really quick flight down to CLT, bags collected, car picked up and OTR in a hurry.  We were home by noon.  Awesome!  All worked exceedingly well considering we woke up in Singapore some 60 hours ago.  Isn’t travel amazing?  Yes, yes it is!

Getting settled, we prioritize the unpacking – pull out our purchases first! Yep – if you can’t wear it or eat it (except for hanging 2 things on the wall!), it doesn’t come home with us. We’re set for at least a week or two, don’t you think?