Sunday, 2019 September 22
We were up early, as Krista wanted to be sure we had plenty of time at the airport given all of the unknowns around travelling with Dad. We went down to the lobby and had a bit of breakfast, then hit the road.
Krista is emphatically not a morning a person. She had volunteered to drive but by about halfway through she was done. I took over. I found the Pathfinder to be a competent vehicle, and I wouldn't be upset if she got one, but I'm just not a fan of SUVs in general.
We made good time to the farm and picked up Dad. He had one small duffel bag plus his briefcase, which made our two-suitcases-each-plus-personal-items all the more ridiculous.
The drive to DTW was uneventful. I dropped Dad and Krista off at the departures area, then returned the Pathfinder. I hopped on the shuttle back to the North Terminal (I don't know how long it had been since I flew out of that terminal) and met them. Unfortunately the Lufthansa counter wasn't even open yet, so we had to wait about 45 minutes. It was a sunny day and we were sitting by the windows, so it was pretty warm.
When the counter did open we got in line and only had to wait a couple of minutes. The checkin was uneventful and we were on our way to the precheck lanes. That was also uneventful - they were in a good mood and took good care of Dad, even with the artificial knee and everything. I think all of us were through in under 60 seconds.
We took off from gate D-5, which was a pretty good hike from the precheck lanes. We were a bit peckish so we stopped at the Hockeytown Cafe and had some chips with cheese dip and salsa and some quesadillas. The quesadillas were sub-par, but the cheese dip was good. Dad hadn't had salsa in years and seemed to really love it, so we left that to him.
Even after lunch we still had a couple hours to kill, so we just sat at the departure gate, watched the people, and read. Time actually went relatively quickly and pretty soon they started boarding. There was a surprisingly big line - apparently Lufthansa has a lot of elite status flyers - so we waited until nearly the end before we joined it. We were in row 3, which was the first business class row on the A340 we were on. I don't think there were any passengers at all in first class.
The flight itself was uneventful. We arced up and over, passing just south of Iceland, and there was some turbulence before leaving Canadian airspace. This exhibited itself as a couple of brief but intense periods, right in the middle of dinner service. That was about it, though.
As seems typical on Lufthansa flights, they fed us very well. The cold scallop appetizer wasn't great - it was a few scallops with a bunch of other stuff that I didn't really care for. But the short rib entree was phenomenal - it was possibly the best airline food I've ever had, and quite probably ranks in the top tier of meals in general that I've ever eaten. I was so full, though.
After dinner wrapped up we all tried to catch some sleep. Personally I didn't get nearly enough though.
Saturday, 2019 September 21 Monday, 2019 September 23