Off we Go! Not!

Monday--3:30am still awake and rearranging everything. Woke the girls. Impressively, they bounced out of bed to dress and help carry bags to the car.
4:30 arrived at airport, checked in at a kiosk, and prepared to journey thru security. I will never get used to walking barefoot in an airport-yuck yuck!
5:40am Where’s the plane?
6:00am Employee announces that they are trying to find a licensed stairway driver ??
6:40 Employee announces that stairway struck the plane which required a "potential damage" inspection.
7:30am My traveling partner and I load up and fly to Detroit. I've never been to Michigan. From the air, the landscape is beautiful—lush green with scattered pockets of trees. Guess I was expecting rows of vehicles, side by side...
So far, my traveling buddy has startled me from desperately needed sleep by seemingly constant movement. The ultimate wakeup was splashing my lap and legs with apple juice! TB (travel buddy) will remain anonymous for now.

2:30 Rain begins in Detroit, quickly followed by beautiful lightning. Oh, they don't load planes when there's lightning....finally loaded for Beijing, later than scheduled. However pilot is soon bragging on PA how the winds will allow us to make up AND get ahead of scheduled landing in Beijing. In a later announcement, I noticed that he went back to using our original landing time.

TB had rough time. She couldn't get comfortable. We were both tired, tired. I find it hard to sleep sitting up with life abounding around me. I gave up my seat so she could enjoy sleeping in a horizontal position and I spent the hours walking and standing. I got to see Siberia really well.

Tuesday night--We arrived late in Beijing, so it was after midnight for bed with a very early start planned on Wed since our guide thought she'd treat us to some outings (I hadn't planned on this) before we fly to Taiyuan, a city that I enjoy visiting.