Monday, August 6th.

Monday, August 6th... The worst part so far was saying goodbye to 2 girls who because my best friends after just a short month. Holly and Sam made this trip even more wonderful than what I could have been. They're both from Kentucky, so they're not far enough away to escape me! We plan to meet up in Columbus or Bloomington every so often just to keep in touch. But we unwillingly went out separate ways to board the coaches to the airport. Luckily, Sam and Holly got to fly together but I was a lone soldier. After pulling an all nighter, I don't know how I stayed vertical all day. We got all checked in to London Gatwick airport around 7am, went through security around 7:30, ate breakfast and found out that our plane which was supposed to leave at 10am was delayed about an hour. This was a bummer but it just meant a few more minutes on English territory! Fritz, I'm coming homeee! This plane eventually took off but was late to arrive in Charlotte. The plus was that every meal we had on the plane was delicious and we had tv to keep us company... but I slept for about 6 hours worth of the 9 hour flight. 

Once in Charlotte, that plane kept getting delayed also. We didn't board till around 6pm when we were due to land in Indy around that time. We sat on the plane itself for around 45 minutes not moving. The captain eventually came over the intercom and told us that air traffic control shut down and they weren't letting anyone leave. All of us were quickly losing patience because of being in airplanes and airports all day. Then is started raining really hard, so it made sense as to why we were sitting there. After waiting and pretty much assuming that we'd be staying the night in Charlotte, the captain came over again and said that we were cleared for take off after the 4 planes in front of us. Thankfully, we did finally leave and make it to Indy about 2.5 hours late around 9pm. My dad, Phil and surprise guest Jonathan patiently waited for me to get there. I managed to stay awake on the ride home telling stories of London. I've got a lot of those! I got home excited to reunite with Fritz and the others. All the animals were so happy to see me that they didn't know what to do with themselves! It was cute. But, I was exhausted and hit the sheets ASAP and slept like a dead man.