Start of Our Norway Adventure

The Villages Airport van picked us up about 10:45 this morning for our trip to the airport.  We were the first of 8 passengers.  All were above Rt 466 except 1, so we were out of the Villages by 11:30AM.
Ray had a pleasant surprise because both the driver and one of the passengers were also Vietnam veterans, and the passenger was actually stationed in Chu Lai just like Ray was.  He was a helicopter pilot with the Hornets and arrived in August 1971.  Ray left in September 1971, so their paths almost crossed. They had a lively conversation during the drive to the airport.

About half way to orlando the driver got a report of an accident on the turnpike ahead of us and was told to get off on Rt 50.  The driver was not a local and didn't know where to go from there, and the dispatcher was not very helpful.  The guy in the front seat started to look on his iPhone and I pulled out my iPad to get maps and directions.  I suggested a route, but the driver and front passenger opted for male intuition and turned onto a highway that did not connect back to the turnpike.  Once on that road the driver realized his mistake and took my advice to turn around to get back to a connecting exit.  It wasn't too bad - the detour only cost us 10 minutes and everyone got to the airport on time.

We had a couple of hours before our scheduled takeoff so we had lunch at a Ruby Tuesdays near our departure gate.  The flight from Orlando to Newark was on time and only had a few minor bumps. We approached Newark from the north and got a nice view of the New York City and the Hudson River, with the new World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty.  We saw all this from the NCL ship a few weeks ago, but it was nice to see from a bird's eye view.  The only problem, as you can see from the photo, is that NYC was covered in haze. Once we got to Newark however, we found our next flight was delayed an hour  because the airplane had hit bad weather coming in.

NYC from final approach to Newark Airport

Once we finally boarded we had another weather delay and sat in the airplane a long time before we got permission to leave the gate.  Then we started to taxi to the crosswind runway, only to be redirected to the main runway when we were almost there.   We had to taxi to the other side of the airpot and get in line again.  It was over 2 hours past our scheduled take-off time when we finally got off the ground.  Then we had to get through and above a thunderstorm during the first hour.  They were trying to serve dinner and the plane was shaking.  I had full glasses of water and wine on my tray and both were spilling over.  Luckily, it calmed down after a few minutes.

The flight was fine after the initial turbulence.  We both managed to get some sleep during the flight.  I watched a movie, "The Budapest Hotel" during dinner but Ray opted to to try to sleep right away.  We had a long day and he hadn't slept well the night before.   I tucked in for the night about midnight so I could get a few hours sleep before landing.