First flight today!

Well, this is it. It is 6 in the morning. Me and Andrew are already awake. The truck is all nestled in tight. Inigo the magnificent has a home to stay in with his best friend, Rudy and his owners, Mathais and Carrie. We have been staying in their hostel, Sir Toby’s while Andrew puts the truck to sleep and finishes varnishing our new kitchen so we have a kitchen to come back to.

The kids have been enjoying getting a “Kofola” (communist coke) on tap in the pub each evening and playing board games with Miro, one of the managers at Sir Toby’s. He actually is a professional chess teacher. It has been good not staying in the truck these last few days. The kids perception of what we actually can fit into our backpacks has altered tremendously and Andrew has been taking a bag back to the truck each day. Hannah was a especially funny site when we left the Mudrick’s house and came to to Sir Toby’s carrying about 4 extra bags of treasures. I spent alot of my day with my mini sewing kit. Repairing clothes and backpacks for the trip and making straps for the sleeping bags.

The kids are getting so excited. Abi couldn’t stop playing games with Inigo yesterday. They must have sounded like baby elephants to the office below. TJ was like a mischievous elf trying to navigate the room on beds. Hmmmm, maybe I should have spent less of my day sewing and more taking the kids out. to burn off some energy. Hannah…well, Hannah is Hannah. She was reading a book with her little bedside light. I think I will need to take them all on a very long walk with a fully loaded backpack tomorrow. Yep. That’s what we’ll do.

Our first flight is this evening. We fly into Sheffield. We will be staying in 3 different friends houses the next 3 nights. Sheffield (Jen and Fran), Kings Lynn (Maggie and Phouc-Tan) and London (Shannon). We thought we would be spending one of these nights in the bus station and another at “Camp Heathrow” (the airport) but our friends had other plans. Hannah really wants to sleep at an airport. Dad talks about doing it all the time. I am sure we will get the chance.

On the 19th is the big flight into JFK, New York. We get picked up from the airport and brought to Poughkeepsie. Isn’t Poughkeepsie a great name. It is one of those words that can make you giggle just for the fun of it as it rolls off the tongue or off the keyboard. Poughkeepsie. You gotta love it.

Anyway, back to the real world. We have known these Mauricio and Shauna for 25 years. Our kids can’t believe that we were hanging out with them before we all got married. They got married 6 months after us and have kids finishing high school as well. We last saw them about 11 years ago.