Scandinavia - 08/28/15

Up at 4:30 to pack and organize. Deb came to bed about 2:00 AM, par for the course on a night before a trip - at least she got some sleep.  Packing goes smoothly, Deb is already packed from the night before.  After our normal egg and sausage breakfast, I run some errands to post office, delivery and bank. 

Tim D. arrives promptly at 9:15 and off we go to Eppley.  We arrive and meet up with our co-adventurers, Howie and Laura Lee Needelman here after referred to as H&L or Howie and Lee.  We get checked in and proceed to the TSA checkpoint, all feeling good that we are TSA-Pre.  Now the adventure really begins.

TSA is unable to scan our boarding passes - the TSA agent claims that our printer must have been low on ink and the image is not dark enough.  Therefore Deb and I now have to get out of the TSA-Pre line and go over to the regular old line, as in take off your shoes, go through the pat down, etc. Oh well, it could be worse - we weren't denied boarding.

On time take off to Chicago, arriving in good time for our transfer to head to Newark.  As we taxi out to the runway, the pilot announces that a tray table is broken and they won't let us take off without a repair.  So back to the gate we go to get a mechanic.  I offer to save United a lot of money by selling them my belt to secure the table in an upright position for take off.  I would even let them keep the belt if the price was right (I was thinking $5,000 as a nice round offer.) No sale. After 45 minutes, the tray table was fixed and so off we went to Newark, arriving only 15 minutes behind our scheduled arrival and still in plenty of time for out next over the water flight to Oslo.

That flight was delayed by an hour due to mechanical problems, so we were able to have a leisurely meal at one of the restaurants. All iPad based ordering from the table, swipe the credit card and they bring the food.  Pretty slick!

Down to the assigned gate, only to learn that the plane was still under repair.  Finally, at 10:15 - two full hours after scheduled departure, we were allowed to board.  By 11:15 we were still sitting on the tarmac, waiting on a clearance from the mechanical guys.  The pilots are fairly irritated from the sounds of their reports to us.  Unfortunate, as this flight is pretty sparse and there are lots of open seats and legroom. 

Finally, at 12:15 AM, the rest of the passengers are let on and the plane fills up; they had stopped boarding shortly after the first group of us enplaned.  What we thought was going to be an empty flight turned out to be quite full.  So, on to Norway