Getting home: the adventure or Traveling in a time of uncertainty.

On Thursday morning Al turned on the TV to see news of the arrest of a large group of alleged terrorists who were part of an alleged plot (the Brits are getting cagier about what they say on TV and in the newspapers) to smuggle in hand-luggage the items necessary blow up airliners going to the US. Air travel in the UK was in chaos. Fine, just fine--we were scheduled to fly through Heathrow on Tuesday. Need I say that we kept our eye on the situation as much as possible?

Fortunately, even in Wales they have English-language television, although I was surprised that there were two, count 'em two, Welsh-language stations. There was no problem getting news about the air travel situation, just a problem trying to sort out what this meant in our lives.

Sunday I finally decided to try calling British Airways and after a few busy signals was actually placed in the hold queue and after a while a cheerful Tony asked what he could do for me. As it turned out, even two days before our flight, he couldn't do much, but what he did do was order a wheelchair. The knee that had been bothering me since Normandy had gotten to the point where I could hobble slowly at best and I didn't trust it to last through the interminable corridors of Heathrow, especially if the crowds were as bad as the TV made them out to be. Tony promised a wheelchair at each stage and he was as good as his word.

Monday morning, while I was in the bath, Al decided to run out and get a newspaper and some cash from the 'hole in the wall,' which is actually what they call it here. Honest, the sign over the ATM says 'the hole in the wall.' I forget which bank it was that has a sense of humor. The ATM was one direction from the hotel a few steps and the news agent the other direction in the next block. As he passed in front of the hotel, our host stuck his head out and said there was a phone call for us.

Our daughter-in-law Joli, the sharp-eyed ex-flight attendant who really doesn't like us flying off on those unreliable airlines, had been following the situation better than we had. She called to let us know that our Manchester-Heathrow flight for Tuesday had been cancelled and that the Heathrow-Phoenix flight on Monday had been cancelled. What would we do without her?

I called British Airways again and got right through. Yes, we could be rebooked from Manchester but since as of this moment our Phoenix flight was still scheduled, no route changes could be offered. Would we like the flight that got into Heathrow at noon, which theoretically could connect with our 2:00 flight, or would we like to get up really early and fly out at 7:25 am? Having seen the TV pictures of the mess at Terminal 4 in Heathrow, I didn't want a close connection so I doomed us to an early departure.

Fortunately, Norman had booked us into a hotel directly across from the BA terminal at Manchester. After checking in, the guys walked over to the terminal to get the lay of the land and figure out how one obtains a wheelchair. Al said that the place was deserted, which was kind of eerie.

The hotel, however, was not deserted. There were an amazing number of families with very small children in the hotel pub where we ate dinner and as we went back to our room, there were lines at the check-in counter too.

People started leaving the hotel at 2:00 am, which would have been fine if they had been quiet about it. The people with the crying children didn't leave until around 3:00 am. Who could blame the kids for being cranky? Our alarm was set for 4:00 am but Al turned it off long before it rang. It was going to be a very long day.

There was a shuttle from the hotel to the terminal so Norman and Colin didn't have to get up early, lucky guys. We had said goodbye to them the night before and thanked them for everything. Not enough, I'm sure.

I don't know how you would get a wheelchair if you couldn't walk to the departures counter. Catch22: you have to be present to check in and they don't call for the wheelchair until you check in. Fortunately, they didn't make us stand in line (which was actually not terribly long) but sent us right to the counter.

Now I'm not saying that it's a good thing to not be able to walk on your own two feet through the airport, but I have to say that it's really nice to have someone wheel you to the head of every line. The poor guy even had to take off his shoes with the rest of us as he took us through security. No loopholes there.

When it was time to board the plane, we got early boarding, which was nice because I didn't have someone breathing down my neck as I hobbled down the jetway.

At Heathrow, we found that the system really works because there was a wheelchair waiting for us at the exit from the plane. I got wheeled to the bus that would take us to Terminal 4 and when we got off the bus there was another wheelchair at that end.

This time, because we had a long wait, we were taken to a separate lounge for people with 'special needs' and unaccompanied children. Even though we had to sit outside in the overflow area, it was really nice not to have to compete in the general waiting areas which were themselves overflowing. There were two attendants at a counter who took charge of boarding passes and arranged for the passengers to be taken to their flights when it was time to board. Pretty nifty. They also came out and cleared the overflow area of non-special-needs interlopers who saw empty seats. It might not have been the first-class lounge, but it was free.

Even though we had a long wait, I felt justified in taking the earlier flight because it had been delayed quite a while and if the later one had been delayed the same amount, I'm not sure we would have gotten on the Phoenix flight.

The big deal was the hand luggage issue. Until 4:30 am of the morning that we flew, absolutely no hand luggage was being allowed. You could take a clear plastic bag with travel documents and prescription medications. Period. Along with a lot of others, I wasn't looking forward to packing my camera and other items in my checked luggage. Fortunately, the restriction was lifted in time for me to pack a large purse with what I didn't want to check. I have to say, though, that getting on and off the aircraft is a whole lot easier and faster when people don't have those huge bags that they pretend are carry-ons. I've been guilty myself of taking a roll-aboard and didn't like to contemplate not being able to use one, but maybe a tighter regulation on the size of cabin luggage is in order.

You do have to wonder about the people who, with all the news on TV and radio and signs in the airport saying that no liquids are allowed on flights to the US, still try to take a Coke onto the airplane. In their transparent plastic bag. Go figure.

Even though the aircraft boarded pretty much on time, we were on the ground for two hours after pushback. The reason? It seems that only after the aircraft is completely loaded can the complete passenger list be faxed to some US agency which then does a security check on the passengers. When you have a 747-full, this is going to take some time under the best of circumstances, which these were not. The rule used to be that the aircraft could take off while the check was being performed, but now the aircraft is not given permission to land in the US until after the security check, so it may not leave the ground.

The cabin crew was really good. They ran the beverage trolleys down the aisle and you could use the loo while we waited. The only problem was that there was no air conditioning and even on a cloudy London day, all those bodies can heat up a Spam can pretty fast. Thank goodness we weren't on the ground in Phoenix.

Finally we took off and the flight was uneventful if ungodly long. We were over twelve hours inside the aircraft, which is way too much time to listen to a three-year-old repeat 'I want my daddy right now, I want to go home right now' every 30 seconds. But I had to agree with her sentiments.