Clint sent in my new EML to get signed by his commander that night. Wednesday he gets an email from his commander saying he sent the EML to someone to "look over." This made me dislike his commander that much more and pretty much assured there was no way I was going Thursday. At that point I thought I was going to have to wait until Tuesday to try again. Then more flights started to pop up.
The thing with Space A is that on Tuesdays and Thursdays you can fly on the Patriot Express which is more like a commercial airliner. Any other day, it's a cargo plane, so like a C5 or C17. The C5s have regular seats, like on regular airlines, and the C17 they have the jump seats bolted to the side of the plan but they don't provide any food and on the C17 you can get out of your seat and lay on the floor or walk around the plane after take off.
So Friday there was suppose to be a flight. Clint had left on Thursday for 2 days up at headquarters in Seoul, which he didn't inform me of his leave until the night before he left, but he was going to get my EML form to me on Thursday. Guess Clint's commander doesn't give out and EML unless there is a real Morale need to leave. Clint assured his commander that indeed his wife DESPERATELY NEEDED TO LEAVE KOREA!
Friday I had bags packed, EML form in my bag, and had double checked to make sure they didn't change the time of the flight. Well of course they did. They cancelled it and bumped it to Saturday. :( More tears were shed.
Attempt # 2 was looking promising since there were 3 flights to CA but by the time I got there then they only had one and I didn't get one because I was still competing against the large CAT 3 families. . GRRR.
Attempt #3 said 10 seats to March Air Force Base in Riverside, which would have been great and 2 other flights to Travis (Up by Sacramento). By now I totally should have been expecting to get the shaft, and I totally did. I just barely missed the flight to March, and the last lady to get on the plane didn't even want to go to March, but to Travis! So frustrating.
By Monday they had another flight to Travis with 73 "supposed" seats and a roll cal at 1:30pm. Or at least that is the last I heard when I went to bed the night before.
I woke up once at 6:30am and thought, go back to bed, you are fine, check in isn't until 1:30pm. We woke up at 8am and my friend had text me telling me they changed roll call to 8:30am! Like 30 minutes from when I read the text and I still needed a quick shower and Osan is 25 minutes away! So I jumped in the shower, downed a Red Bull, threw bags, and child into the car and drove like a complete maniac. Pretty sure I ran EVERY red light and may or may not have pulled a "Korean" and passed the people waiting for the light to turn green by driving on the shoulder. I jumped speed bumps and drove about 110 kilometers per hour that is, but I made it! Not only did I make it, but I got on the plane and with my friend who had text me!
We got onto a C5. Fairly sure it was the same C5 that had been having mechanical difficulties since Friday. Here are some pictures of what a C5 looks like.
The military loads cargo in the bottom portion and WAY UP AT THE TOP they bolt airline seats in, facing backwards, and that is were we got to sit. I can't find any pictures of the inside on the web. They made it VERY clear that no photography was allowed on the flight line so sorry I don't have any. It was VERY tempting though!
Unlike a commercial airliner, there were no overhead compartments, but PLENTY of leg room! You could pretty much lay down on the ground between the seats if you wanted, and we got to pick our own seats. Also unlike commercial, there were no windows. This made things a little interesting!
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| Actual plane just like what we flew on. Figured that I was off post so I could take a picture while another of their planes flew in the sky! |
When the plane takes off, you just about fall out of your seat because you are facing backwards! Thank goodness for seat belts! But it was so nice not being squished into a plane. They also don't bother you during the flight. They hand out ear plugs before take off, and you are pretty much on your own. No call buttons, now rude flight attendants harassing you and telling your child "your mommy doesn't care about your safety" when she really just had to pee! Yeah that happened the last time I flew United Airlines.
Our first of MANY destinations was Kadena Airbase in Okinowa, Japan. Only 2 hours of flight time and then a TWENTY hour lay over!
We made it to Kadena, and Alisha, myself and our 3 boys all shared a tiny room at lodging for the night. We wanted to get some energy out from the boys so we took them to Kadena Marina to go swimming. OK beach, and by far the WARMEST ocean water I have ever been in. \
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| On the way to the beach. |
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| Man, got to watch out for those Humps, they can get ya! |
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| Korean Taxis are known for being super nice, leather seats and the cars are no more then 2 years old. Japanese cabs are totally the opposite. They were like late 80s early 90s square cars with these lacy seat covers on them. |
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| Kadena Marina |
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| Boys being silly |
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| They were Kung Fu Fighting... |
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| Island I attempted to swim out to. |
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| You only get one good smile from this kid! |
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| My attempts at a self photo with cool background. |
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| Let's cover our feet game. |
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| Wonder what he was thinking about. |
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| Pictures during my swim toward the island. |
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| How close I got before I freaked out and turned back. |
The beach had a net about a hundred feet away or so and then there was an island out further from that. It looked pretty cool and I wanted to be adventurous and go check it out. Mind you, I really HATE the ocean. I freak out about not being able to see what is under me and stuff hitting my legs and the ocean creatures attacking me, but I was wanting to be brave. So I started to swim out to get some better pictures of the little island. I got about 1/3 of the way before a giant piece of sea weed rubbed along me leg, and I completely freaked and headed back to shore. Good thing, because I later found out that Lion Fish swim around the island!
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| Sand, his favorite! |
Clint's friend Kathy is stationed at Kadena and she and her husband brought 2 vehicles to pick us up, take us back to the lodge, then to the commissary to get more food for the flight (remember they don't feed you) and then to dinner. We ate at a sushi place that had awesome sushi especially compared to the pathetic excuse for sushi Korea has.
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| Trip to dinner. |
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| Japanese gas station. Like the lion statue? |
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| Our little travel gang. |
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| Inside of the restaurant. They specialized in blow fish. |
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| Jets! |
The boys fell asleep fairly easily and us mommies felt like we only got 20 minutes of sleep. We had to be back at the passenger terminal at 5:45am to check our bags and then wait around for 5 hours before boarding.
A little before 10am they asked us to get on a bus. On the way, Clark opened the wrong door, causing an alarm to sound and EVERYONE stared at us! I announced that, "Why Yes, I have "THAT" kid that opens doors that make alarms go off."
We were loaded onto really hot buses, leaving the nice air conditioned terminal, so we could sit on the tarmac for 30 minutes waiting for the plane to finish getting ready. Don't feel so bad about the door alarm now! Then onto the big plane, where were continued to be tortured with intense heat for what seemed like forever! I was close to loosing it because I don't do well with heat and sweating, but I knew that as soon as we got in the air the plane would cool down. It did and we slept about 7 of the 9 hours to Honolulu.
And of course we get to Hawaii at 1am and they tell us that there are maintenance issues and it hopefully will get fixed before take off time. Then about 30 minutes later they tell us it will be at least 24 hours before it "might" leave.
That was the last straw for me! The wireless in the terminal was poor and I couldn't get any of my devices to connect and waited for a computer to ask Clint's mom to turn on the American cell phone and see how much a flight from Hawaii to OC was going to cost.
My loving, handsome, prince charming husband came to my rescue, stayed up extra late to find an affordable flight and booked it for me! $240 each leaving the same day! Awesome. All I could find was $400 a ticket. Later that morning when I went to tell the Airforce people to give my seat to someone else, she had told me that one of the Airmen had getten sick and was in the hospital and that they wouldn't be leaving with out him, so who knows how long before it would actually be before it headed to Travis.
Then there was the 15 hour wait for my flight. Gave me time to write most of this post.
I sat in the USO for about 7 hours, I slept for about an hour, Clark slept for 4ish hours. Around 2pm I needed to get him up and moving so he would sleep on the plane from Hawaii to San Francisco. This was hard to do, because it meant leaving the comforts of the USO and going through the security line for the 3rd time. The first time I forgot I had bought Clark a Naked Juice and there was NO WAY I was tossing a $5.00 drink! So out we went.
The second time I had gone to the bathroom before going through security and left my phone on the toilet paper holder, and realized after I had the TSA goof balls check my tickets. So the 3rd time the TSA guy was a little worried why I had already gotten 2 signatures. That was after standing behind a family of rude Americans too! They did not follow normal American protocol of the invisible space bubble! So my backpack I was wearing kept hitting them. Oh well, they could have gave me more space! Oh and couldn't miss the Korean guy totally pushing past me to get his stuff after going through the x-ray machine.
Clark and I then spent the next 8 hours touring the Hawaii international airport, going in pretty much every shop and walking around to keep us awake.
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| First picture from Hawaii |
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Hanging in the USO
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Hanging in the USO
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| Enjoying the clean air and beautiful skies in the Airport Courtyard |
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| Icecream Break |
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| Can you tell we had been in the airport for a LONG time and still had a LONG TIME TO GO! |
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| See my teeth |
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| Dinner, WAY better Sushi then I have ever had in Korea! Sad it was at the airport! |
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Couldn't hang!
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| Personal cave! |
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| Showing off his new necklace |
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1 more planes
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On the last plane of the day, just a short hour flight from San Francisco to San Diego, they had us sit on the tarmac for a good 20 minutes. Said some sensor was on and that they had to completely turn off the plane and see if it would reset. At this point I was freaking out because I was too far to easily take a train or shuttle home and all I needed was for the pilot to tell us we had to get off the plane and wait in the airport for a bazillion hours more to get home that was only an 8 hour drive away.
They restarted the plane and we took off and made it safely to San Diego.
Cost of the trip was less then $700 when you factor in hotel, food and the flight from Hawaii to San Diego! I am not sure I am going to attempt a Space A flight again, unless I have to. While I could deal with hot buses, hot planes at first, and long waiting in terminals, and I really enjoyed the extra leg room and flight attendants not pestering us, I couldn't deal with getting stuck in expensive places like Hawaii for who knows how long.
I did talk to a friend in Korea who said she got stuck in Hawaii trying to get back to Korea. After talking with her for a while, we figured that the plane that got her stuck in Hawaii was the same one that had me stuck there, and it had been 3 weeks since she was stuck. Guess the C5s have some maintenance issues to deal with. And they never fixed the broken seat since my friend was on it 3 weeks ago, but man it sure did provide a nice place to spread out and sleep very comfortably.
Sorry for any errors in my writing. I wanted to get all of this down before I forgot, but I am still SUPER jet lagged. I went to bed last night at 9:30 woke up at midnight wide awake, back asleep by 2 then up again at 6 and felt like I had a hang over. Here is hoping I sleep better tonight! My fun filled, soaking up CA goodness has started and I need to be feeling better then I do now!
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