19th September 2017 - Tuesday

Today was possibly going to be the most gruelling day of the holiday. I’m sure by the end I’ll be able to calculate the total travelling time, but the ideas is to get to Washington first and hopefully the rest of the holiday will be at a bit more leisurely pace.

We had an early start at 7am, Kathryn woke and found out our flight was delayed by 40 minutes. This was great actually because it meant immediately we decided to get a later train and spend another half an hour in bed! We got up, and got ready, flinging the final few things into our luggage. There was a slightly complicated manoeuvre to get to the station that involved me dropping Kathryn off at the station with the bags, driving back, parking the car and walking back up the station. We timed it well and got the 08:20am train to Leeds. The weather was amazing, sunny and cold to start our trip.

I had bought our tickets on Monday for the train to Manchester Airport. Therefore we didn’t need to leave the station and Kathryn picked up some breakfast on the concourse whilst we changed platforms to get the train to Manchester. The train over to Manchester was pretty much the same as the one we commuted on for 3 months earlier this year. Therefore we got a decent seat and bags safely placed in the luggage areas. It was a lovely morning, and the transpennine train is quite a nice scenic route on any day really.

Eventually the train rolled into Manchester Airport. It was a short walk, via a couple of travelators to Terminal 2 for international departures. We checked our bags, and made our way through security. We had paid for access to a lounge within the airport, however this proved a bit disappointing, although it was entertaining. There wasn’t really much of a food selection, and was very noisy. I think because most passengers were short-haul, and so trying to maximise the free alcohol, whilst we were long-haul and ideally would have liked a calmer, more serene atmosphere.

We made our way to the gate though in plenty of time and boarded the plane easily. We had paid a small upgrade of £30 for some extra legroom that seems really value for money as it seems quite similar to the premium encomony we flew on our honeymoon. We have also been able to book the two window seats and so we have some privacy too.

I’m not sure what Kathryn has done, but after we took off she was greeted by one of the cabin crew as a ‘regular flier’ and she quickly took advantage and requested some free champagne. Food was servered which was a nice pesto pasta lunch.

Update GMT 20:40

We’ve had a good flight and will shortly be landing in the next hour. Unfortunately it’s been cloudy the whole way virtually so we haven’t been treated to the spectacular views like we had over Newfoundland that we saw on our honeymoon.

We had a little snack consisting of a snadwhich and crisps to keep us going. Fingers crossed it doesn’t take us too long to get through immigration control and onto the next terminal where we will have dinner before boarding the last leg of our journey to Washington.

Update EST 20:30

So, this is what travelling is all about right? The journey?

We had an unconventional arrival at JFK, whereby after clearly taking a few right turns on our approach over long island, the pilot announced that due to weather conditions at JFK that there was a bit of a backlog of planes landing (later we were informed we were 15^th in the queue). We circled a while, and eventually flew south of New York before a tight right turn back into JFK airport. The approach was a bit shaky, but actually the landing was totally fine.

We disembarked, and made our way to immigration control. It was quite a lengthy walk, and we worked up quite a sweat as the temperature was around 20 degrees and quite humid.

Unlike our last visit, we virtually made it to the front of the queue before a technical malfunctions on the computers meant we had to wait about 15 minutes before making our way through. For once we had a nice lady check our passports, enquire about our visit and then wave us through. Our bags were waiting on the luggage caroselle,, although there were so many black suitcases, can’t remember ever seeing so many before. Anyway, we spotted Kathryns suitcase and were on our way.

After a quick loo break, things took a slightly unexpected turn. Kathryn says she has a text from Jan saying she thinks our flight is cancelled. Slightly puzzled, we made our way out to the arrivals hall and eagerly check the departures board. And as pre-warned, our flight was indeed cancelled.

We quickly joined a queue at a Delta airlines desks to see what we could do, we weren’t sure if we could still get a flight for today. It was looking unlikely. We had a quick discussion which involved formulating a plan B.  Ideally we’d like to get to Washington today, so we don’t loose a day of our holiday, and can make the tour of the capitol building we have booked tomorrow.

Therefore, the plan was to grab a taxi to Penn Station, and get a train to Washington. We were incredibly fortunate in a way that we had done this on our honeymoon so we kind of knew what to do without too much hesitation. We had some luck again and the taxi queue was short and soon we were driving over the bridge into Manhattan, definitely an unexpected visit

The taxi seemed to take forever, we were bumper to bumper for most of the  journey in Manhattan, but eventually at around 7pm we arrived at Penn Station. We had a bit of a rush to get through the station to the Amtrak section to get our tickets. I was thinking there might still be a possibility the train might be booked, afterall the taxi clerk at JFK had mentioned there had been a lot of requests to go to the station. However, fortunately, or rather unfortunately for our bank account, we were still able to get two tickets on the 7:40pm train to Washington.. Kathryn ran off to get some food and it wasn’t too long before the train was boarding.

It was a bit of scrum to get on the train, we had some luck and after boarding some ladies moved seats so we could sit together. And that is pretty much it for now. We are winding our way through New Jersey at speed. The train is scheduled to arrive around 11pm so we still have a way to go yet. At least hopefully now our holiday is back on track, and hopefully in the light of day we might be able to find out why our flight was cancelled, but we aren’t worrying about that at the moment!