Atlanta, Georgia (Tuesday, March 29th, 2016)

Our daughter headed off this morning for work as usual, but had her bags packed for a very important trip to Georgia.  Her husband is graduating from Ranger School on Friday!

Steve and I spent the day packing and getting ready for our week long trip.  So excited to see our son (in-law), and watch him graduate!

Steve's parents are taking us to the airport to avoid having two cars there.  Our daughter will leave straight from work, and meet us there.  We will be on the 5:15 flight to Atlanta.  When our daughter arrived at the airport, she gave us a call and asked us to meet her at the USO.  Most large airports in the US have a USO, it is an organization that strives to make the travels of active military and their families more comfortable.  When we walked into the USO, they had cubbies for our bags, a free snack bar with donuts, muffins, hot dogs, etc.  They had tables and internet as well as loungers and a TV.  It isn't fancy, but it is the perfect place to spend your time if you had a long delay, or even for our half hour wait before take-off.  Steve, being the gentleman that he is, left our daughter and I to enjoy the USO, while he went to pick us up some dinner and then meet us at the gate. 

Hanging out at the USO before our flight to Atlanta.  What a great place for military families!

When we arrived at the Atlanta airport, we had to pick up our rental car.  We usually use Avis, since we are preferred customers with them, but this time we could not get good rates with them, so using our IHG rewards program (linked to Holiday Inn Express), we were able to get a good rate at Hertz.  We also got a lot of IHG points to use in the future, so you can't beat that!

When we landed at the Jackson-Hartfield airport in Atlanta, we took the train to the rental car building, which was the last train stop.  Our daughter and I waited with the bags while Steve went to the counter to get the car that we had reserved a week earlier.  We had reserved the car with Hertz, and although we usually reserve our car with Avis because we are Avis preferred customers, we are also Hertz preferred members, so we assumed that we would be treated well.  When Steve got to the counter, they explained that they did not have any full-size cars available.  We needed a large car as we were taking one of our daughters friends to Columbus with us and we all had a bunch of luggage.  Steve worked patiently with them while our daughter and I waited with the bags.  Apparently they were not happy with the rate we got, so they kept stalling, and offering him "upgrages" at an additional charge.  Steve was not willing to do this since he had been guaranteed a full-sized car at the rate quoted to him.

Finally, after 45 minutes they "found" a brand new Toyota Camry for him which was big enough to accommodate all of our passengers and bags, so we took the car and headed out of the airport.  It was now 11:00 pm, and we were tired, and tired of fighting with Hertz.  It was not a good experience, and one we hope to not have to go through again anytime soon.

Our hotel reservation was at the Holiday Inn Express, Airport location.  When we arrived, the woman at the front desk was extrodinary!  She was so friendly and helpful.  She gave us our room, which since we arrived so late (around 11:45 pm) was one of the last rooms they had.  We went to our room, and at first glance, it looked great, but very soon, we realized that the heater had a constant banging noise.  We figured that we were tired enough that we could sleep through it, so we all jumped into bed with hopes of a good nights sleep.