Hello, and welcome back to your annual story time of Ben and Sarah’s international adventures! Keeping with the tradition of the last few years, Sarah and I visited with her family, this year going back to Scotland.

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Saturday, 04-Jan-2020

The end of the adventure went a bit more smoothly than the start, though not quite as easily as we would have hoped… But that’s okay.  Sometimes a bit of a challenge comes up at the last minute – but that doesn’t undo all of the good that happened before.

We left Aberdeen bright and early on Saturday.  Or, early on Saturday, at least… it wasn’t quite late enough in the day for it to be bright out.  One of the downsides of life way up in the North of Scotland.  The weather was lovely though, and Bill and Greta had coffee and snacks waiting for us as soon as we came downstairs.  Not a bad morning, not a bad morning at all.

Our first few flights were easy; no worries and no hassles at all, except for what amazing meal to request, or what weird movie to check out.  It was nice, and gloriously relaxing.

Unfortunately, the flight from San Francisco out to Portland ran into a bit of a challenge – or more accurately, we ran into a challenge getting to the flight.  Getting into the EU from the States is beautifully simple; you walk through the gate, an automated kiosk checks you in, bing bang boom.  Getting back INTO the States, though… that’s a bit different story.

Our flight had landed a little bit later than planned, if I recall correctly, and that little bit was just enough to push it over the edge.  When Customs and Border security was slower than normal, that was the nail in the coffin, and our flight took off with us still trying to get checked back in.  Fortunately there were two more flights to Portland leaving SFO that same evening… unfortunately, they weren’t leaving for almost eight more hours.

So we waited for eight hours, then flew home.

We were excited to see our own bed by that point, I tell you what.  But you know what?  A little challenge at the end of a trip doesn’t make it any less of an excellent trip.  The good experiences we had, and the amazing photos that we took home with us more than make up for any delays in flights or airline battles.