We're Off

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After planning for the past 11 months, researching concerts, hotels and so on, we are finally on our way to Europe.

I was really so proud of myself yesterday; I had cleaned up the house, finally putting away all of the painting supplies and sorting through all of the piles that had collected during the partial remodel, cleaned the kitchen floor. Clothes and our trip stuff were starting to be collected. Gosh, for the 1st time in my life I was going to actually get packed in plenty of time and get a decent night’s sleep.

Dale and I had decided that we would only try to carry only carry-on’s but we soon realized that we would also need his backpacking pack. This was all great but then reality set in about 9 pm.

1st, our European friends love almonds so I had the brilliant idea that we’d take some raw almonds that I had still (about 5#) and some of Nate’s processed almonds. Camilo was kind enough to bring a couple of bags for each person plus a few more.

2nd, our Belgium girl, Pascaline, had ordered a few items from American Eagle sent to our house for us to deliver.

Dale started to pack his backpack while I worked with everything else. Opps! The backpack was completely full of only almonds and Pascaline’s things, no room for our stuff except our shoes. And oh was the pack heavy!

By 10:30 we were re-evaluating our situation, we got out a rolling carry-on, 1st the smaller one but we still needed more room. We unpacked the small bag and packed a larger one.

By 1 a.m. and 1 bottle of wine under our belt we had stuffed the backpack, the carry-on, our tote bag to overflowing, the camera bag that would no longer completely zip shut and a day pack.

Camilo came by as he was going to take us to the airport; he’d decided to come early in order to not oversleep. I’d told him that we could really just drive and park, then he could pick up the car later but he didn’t want to do that.

At 4:14a.m. we were out the door. I asked Camilo if he knew the quickest way to the airport and then told him to turn right as the Bakersfield airport is only 15 minutes to the north. He asked “why are we going this way?” and I said well Meadow’s Field is just over to the NE. Camilo-“Meadow’s Field? Not LAX?” Me- “What?, did you think you were driving us to LAX? Camilo- “Yes, that’s why I came to take you to the airport”.
(LAX is 2-1/2 hours away) Poor Camilo, but we had a good laugh and he could already hear his wife laughing at him in his head!

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Photos

See Ya
1st leg