Just making it by the hair of our chinny chin chin

Last day in Columbus.  Woke up and the weather was ZERO degrees!  I've never seen that before.  We had an 11am flight and were a little concerned about the weather in Charlotte.  They were having a weather advisory and we hoped that we didn't get stuck there.

But our last day in Columbus began in the usual way -- get up and go downstairs to the breakfast area.  We especially loved sitting in the window seat where we could enjoy the view, read the paper, see the TV news, do work on the laptop, or play with our phones.  Of course, we also enjoyed our little breakfast.  Here's what the area looked like (not my picture):

After breakfast it was time for us to take the hotel shuttle to the airport.  We got to the airport with plenty enough time.  Our flight took off on time and we were on our way to Charlotte. 

When we finally got settled into our gate in Charlotte, there was only enough time for us to catch a quick potty break and then make the mad dash over to Terminal B -- which was a good 15 minute walk.  Since we had eaten only a small breakfast, we dashed into a little shop that sold pre-packaged sandwiches and grabbed a couple of sandwiches and chips to eat on the plane.

We had absolutely no time to spare.  Our plane was in the final boarding stages as we got to the gate.  We were thankful we made the connection, but never realized how important that was going to end up being.

Here was our view as we were waiting to leave the gate to go through the de-icing process.

In fact, from the time we landed in Charlotte to the time we took off (maybe 45 minutes or so) the weather conditions really started to deteriorate.  I snapped this next picture as we were finally cleared to go to the de-icing area.  There were literally planes sitting everywhere.

Thankfully, for some reason, our plane had been given first priority to be de-iced and get approved for take off.  Must be they knew some celebrities were on board (us!)

I took lots of pictures of the de-icing process.  We have never been through that and it was quite interesting.  Luckily the pilot explained what was happening during the course of it so that made it even more interesting to actually know what was happening.

You pull up into an area on the runway that is lined with these funny little trucks on each side.  First they spray a mixture of hot water and a chemical to melt any of the ice buildup on the entire plane.

Then these same little trucks spray another solution on the wings that will prevent from ice forming.

 

After you get de-iced the plan is to get you on the runway to take off quickly before the chemicals wash off.  I was just praying that those guys did a good job and we wouldn't have any problems taking off. 

It was funny to look back and see all the planes still waiting to go through their de-icing.  We heard that it was the first time in 10 years that Charlotte has had to de-ice planes.

And here we are during take off saying good-bye to the nasty weather in Charlotte!

Once we got above the clouds the weather was beautiful, clear, and sunny.  We found out later that our flight was the last one out for the day to Houston, as they had to cancel the other 3 flights due to weather.  In fact, the airport shut down for two days because Charlotte had such bad weather. We are so thankful that all our connections were made and that we were able to get out of there before everything took a turn for the worse.

We actually do have to say that Columbus was even better than we had expected.  Yes the weather was cold and the warmest it ever got was 20 degrees, but we made it an adventure and enjoyed all the new challenges we had to deal with.  We've also decided that we choose to live in the South and not have to deal with all that nasty weather.  We also learned that this was the worst winter the Columbus had had for a long, long time and we feel fortunate that we were able to go there and enjoy a little bit of it with them.

Now, it's back home and back to work!