Wayfaring Day 258

March 15, 2026 Sunday

TRAVEL DAY TO BARCELONA

We were up pretty early and made our departure from home base at about 8:45. We might have left a little earlier but we had already gotten a notification that the flight was delayed 30 minutes. We had a smooth trip to the airport which took only 3 hrs 15 min. We had scheduled our Parking Spot for 12:00 and we’re turning in at about 11:58. Pretty good planning!(?)

Not being in a hurry, the shuttle of course, was right there at our car as we parked. So we sort of hurried ourselves and got everything out of the car. The driver loaded up our two bags that were both pushing 50 pounds and we were on our way. We had a great personable driver which was nice and not always the case. Our parking cost was $150 and we gave our driver a $10 tip. A good deal in our estimation.

We had almost zero walk into the terminal. We were very early so we couldn’t check our bag until there was someone at the bag drop for Lufthansa. Around 2:30 we got in line and dropped our bags which didn’t take long. Next we went through security. They have been warning everyone about long lines due to the government shutdown. As it turned out we had no trouble getting through TSA Pre-check which may have taken 10 minutes. The regular lines were not that bad either so there was no drama at security. We had some food at a Mexican restaurant, splitting our fajita plate due to high prices and high numbers on the scales. Drinks were free refills which was nice because we wanted to make sure we had some hydration as we got closer to our flight. Boarding was scheduled for 5:20 with a departure time of 6:00. That was still only 30 minutes late. However, that means only 10 minutes between our arrival in Frankfurt and our boarding time for Barcelona. So we have some fear we will not make our connection. We probably need to get to Frankfurt ahead of time in order to have a chance at all. We are already thinking about having to catch a different flight when we get to Frankfurt in the morning. This makes us wonder if our luggage will get to Barcelona without us, or worse, we get to Barcelona and the luggage is late. Either way we will figure out something. Our plane left the gate at about 6:05 but it over an hour later before we took off. Not sure what the delay was but we sat on the tarmac for around an hour before being given the ok to get on the runway and take off. So, for the next several hours we will try to sleep but probably will not get much sleep before getting close to Frankfurt.