I've Got To Get This Marvelous Adventure Finished!

I don't know how much I can get written here before we need to head out for church...not much actually, but I'll start anyway.

Ok. I think I got us up to Thursday, December 21. I got up between 6:30 and 7 am because Julie wasn't sleeping too well. That was 11:30 pm, Wednesday night in NM, by the way. Just FYI. Our plan was for Mom, the big kids, and I to ride the shuttle bus to the airport while Steve drove the van, Julie, and the luggage. We would all meet at the rental car place.

So we get there at 9am, get all 12 suitcases, 6 carry-ons, 2 strollers, and 3 carseats loaded onto 4 VERY SMALL trolleys. These trolleys were not only microscopic, but they had those stupid English "let's roll in all directions" wheels, which makes pushing said trolleys difficult when they're not loaded up. But we had at least 150-200 pounds on each one. What a pain!

We got the van checked in, no problem. Now began the UPHILL trek to the departures area. I'm not kidding you. We had to push these lovely trolleys up ramps that spanned at least 2 stories of building. Not only that, but we couldn't go in one trip because we didn't have enough hands to push everything simultaneously. Mom was manning one stroller, Caleb another, Steve one trolley, and me a trolley. That leaves two trolleys. So everyone but me (and 2 trolleys) made the trek up halfway. Steve came back for me, then he and I went the whole way. When we got to the departures area, we were met by complete and total pandemonium.

I have never traveled at Christmas, so I don't know if this was normal Christmas traffic. But added to the normal Christmas traffic was an element of "frantic-ness" because of all the flights being cancelled out of Heathrow, which by Thursday morning, was ALL of them. Fortunately at Gatwick (where we were), we knew that at least our flight was ok.

At this point, there's some sort of queue in front of us that we either need to cross or join. Problem is, we don't know what the queue is for, since we can see neither the head nor the tail. We see a young lady in a bright yellow t-shirt that says something on it like "Ask me for help" and ask her where the international departures are.

Fortunately, she points us away from the sea of humanity that is the queue in front of us. But now we have to swim upstream in this sea to get to the International Departures.

What a nightmare!

After much bumping into other people, being bumped into, and seeing steam rise from Steve's ears at disturbingly increasing quantities, we get to the Northwest desks.

There is no queue at Northwest. Sigh of relief.

But now Steve has to go retrieve the rest of the family. He disappears into the sea of humanity again and I don't see him again for easily another 15 minutes.

Now I have to go to church. Sorry to leave you mid-post, but dinner and AWANA calls!