It's July 1st and my boss doesn't want to lose one day of her holidays. There we go to the USA - our third cycling trip. This year we'll try a new company: Cycle America. The information my boss received during the year made her anxious to go!
Our friend Nele is on time at 5:30 am to pick us up. It's still calm on the highway. As we ride past Jabbeke, my boss suddenly shouts in panic: stop! My goodness! That's a wake up call! She explains:" I forgot my credit card at home!". I still wonder how she thought about it at that moment. Good thing we are not in Brussels yet! So Nele turns the car and there we go - back home. Luckily she has no trouble finding the card and soon we are really on our way.
Checking in causes no problem this year, which makes a difference from the year before. Our short flight with British Airways to London was superb. My boss likes to look out of the window and it is great to see tiny Oostende from up above. She could recognise several landmarks of her city.
In London Gatwick we have ample time to transfer from one flight to the other one. "Last call for ...". Hurry, boss, this is our flight!
What a bummer! We have the last seat in the plane - just behind a drunken man and a chain-smoking woman! (Yes, then it was still allowed to smoke on the plane). And to make the disappointement bigger: we have an hour delay! This makes the couple in front of us drink and smoke even more.
But luckily the view is astonishing: Greenland with it's glacier and the big big ocean!
The movies during the flight are not very interesting, my boss thinks. She passes her time with trying to solve some crosswords, but - just like me - her eyes become heavy and soon we take a nap.
Sweet Machine is already waiting for us in Minneapolis, but the bags take a long time to arrive. Finally we can go through Immigration and Customs without problems. We still have time to by a book from John Saul before hopping on our domestic flight to Salt Lake City. My boss can easily read the geographic features of the landscape from above: Wyoming, Grand Tetons and Bear Lake!
Woops... where did Sweet Machine go to? He's not here!!! The backpack can be picked up at the carrousel but no bicycle... My boss can only mention this "loss" at the NorthWest company. Now we use the courtesy phone to contact the Quality Inn. "No, mam, we have no reservation in your name!" My boss decides to take the van to the hotel anyways. We are lucky there are still some rooms free.
Exhausted my boss takes a shower and gets ready for bed, when suddenly the phone rings: "Your bicycle has arrived!"
See... all ends well. No room for panic!
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