4th of July Vacation and Flight to ET!

Almost a year ago we made plans for a 4th of July beach vacation in North Carolina. We planned this trip with my wives parents and brothers family. My brother in-law is stationed in Hawaii as a pilot in the Coast Guard and we haven’t been together in about 3.5 yrs.



I was a little hesitant to commit to the vacation because we were in the process of adopting a child from Ethiopia. As the year slipped slowly by the adoption process stretched out longer and longer. By early May I felt that if we were to get a referral call soon, we would have to travel to ET during the planned vacation. Sure enough we got the call for a beautiful baby girl and we needed to be in ET by the 12th of July. After careful planning we were able to find a way to go on vacation and then fly for ET from Myrtle Beach airport.

Our children stayed with the family to finish the beach vacation. My wife and I flew out on the 7th from MB into Atlanta. Then from Atlanta to Washington DC where we spent the night at a hotel before flying out on Ethiopian Air at 12:00 noon the following day.

We were lucky to make it to DC. First we were about 15 minutes into out 1 hour long drive to the Myrtle Beach airport when Carrie asked me if I picked up her pink backpack. The one with our passports, paperwork and cash we needed for our trip. We turned back and grabbed the bag. I tried not to worry about the time we needed to get to the airport before the flight. Have you ever seen 4th of July holiday traffic in Myrtle Beach? The 1 hour long trip turned into 2 hours and 10 minutes. We had about 30 minutes to get checked in and get on our flight. I am glad the airport was small and thankful we were able to get to DC on time.

The next day we got up early and arrived at Dulles airport about 3.5 hours before our flight.
Even though the hotel was only 2 miles from the airport Carrie was not going to take any chances on being late again.

(To be continued)
Tony