Before The Trip

We put our house on the market in 2009 but did not have a firm offer until April of 2011.  We listed with our good friend Sandi of Watson Realty in October 2010.  Closing was scheduled for June 29^th which gave us ample time to arrange movers, flights, dog travel, a car and to have several garage sales.  We were so fortunate at our second garage sale. A former neighbor whom we had never met, bought our 16ft. runabout boat and our car – for cash!  We gave him the titles and agreed
that we could keep the car until the 29^th of June.

Our friends, Mary and Ray, threw a going-away-party for us. What a great night to have our friends in one place and to share stories. Great food, DJ Ray and everyone’s presence made it a happy but sad evening.

ALL the arrangements had been made to fly out on July 1^st.
Our house closing was postponed from Wednesday the 29^th at 11 a.m. to finally signing the last document at 6:30pm on Thursday due to the buyers’ mortgage company not doing their job. Just a tad bit stressful, ya think? We then had to drive our rental car 300 miles to Macon, Georgia to a pet-friendly hotel I had booked. Since it was now almost 10pm when we arrived and all the restaurants were closed, we had a memorable dinner of vending machine potato chips but good wine. 

The next day we drove to Atlanta airport. The fun now began in earnest. Where do we find the cargo area to drop off Angus, our dog? Before we left Jacksonville I had called Delta to find out where the cargo was and I was told there were signs. Signs in the clouds maybe!  It was now about 1pm and Angus was to be there by 2. After three pieces of directional misinformation, we found it. We were told to stand in the hot warehouse, Angus would be weighed and to come back into the office to pay. Not so!! After 45 minutes of standing around (no seats) we were advised to go to Domestic Cargo to purchase a crate. So we all piled into the car and off we go. A very helpful and caring Delta employee put the crate together and took it to International (as we had no room for it in the car) where we were finally able to have Angus processed for the trip of his life. We had to leave the poor little guy sitting in his crate. It was heartbreaking.  Bye-bye Angus.........

We returned the rental car, loaded our three big suitcases and miscellaneous stuff onto a trolley, and pushed into the main building but at the entrance, there is a sticky-up part so the cart bucked and our luggage went flying. A couple of travelers took pity on us and helped sort the mess. Merde! What next? After taking two airport trains to the check-in area we barely made it to boarding. No relaxing time calling family, no winding down, just a rush to the gate. Fortunately, when we arrived at boarding the flight was 15 minutes (6:15pm) late. We were the first ones on. We were exhausted and stressed to the max from the past few days. One of the perks of flying first class is the service (aka free booze). When we first boarded I was given a glass of champagne and Brian, water. We clinked our glasses, Brian said Slange, and I, quite loudly, said F*&% instead of Cheers!  We laughed and laughed - it released some of the tension, if embarrassingly so. 

It was a pleasant flight in "the front of the bus" (a present to ourselves using our frequent flyer miles) with champagne, wine, a four-course meal, port, individual TV screens, breakfast, and comfortable almost lie-flat seats. After a few hours, we started to decompress. 
These seats were the opposite of our flight to Paris in 2009. I had pre-booked our seats with the thought that since they were the last ones in the column nobody would be behind us. That was true. But, also true, they didn’t recline at all and we had to sit upright for the entire journey and we had to listen to the lavatory door banging all night.  What an improvement this was!