Here We Go!!

Today is the day! We are on our way! (I didn't mean for that to rhyme.)

I got out of bed this morning at about 4:30. I'm not really a morning person and have a hard time leaving my house when it's still dark. Something about it doesn't seem right. To me, 5:00 only happens once a day and it's not in the morning. I did discover, however, that there is literally no traffic on the streets of Inman at that time of the morning. Just thought you'd all be interested to know that.

I had to leave Smoltzie at my parents' house and it was so hard. This is the longest I've left him since right after I got him. He looked out the window at me with his sad little face as I pulled away and I wanted to cry. If I keep talking about it, I'm gonna cry now.

So... it's about 8:50am and we're now sitting in Concourse B at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. Airport security is so much fun. While holding both my boarding pass and my ID, I had to take off my shoes (of course I wore sneakers, not slip-on shoes), have my quart-sized bag of liquids out, and get out my laptop to put through the scanner. Thankfully, I got through without anything beeping.

I also found out that they (at least US Air) now charge $15 to check a bag. What?? Aren't the prices of tickets enough to cover that? And if somebody carries on a bag instead of checking it, isn't it going to be the same amount of weight on the plane? I started to carry on both my bags instead of checking one, until I realized that my suitcase had liquids that they wouldn't allow me to carry on - you know, really dangerous stuff like full-sized bottles of lotion and face wash. And no more free meals on long flights either. There was a menu passed around on the bus coming up here that had the prices for meals. Seven bucks for fruit and cheese? Glad I brought snacks with me.

I can't tell you how excited I am right now! We have our big group of travelers - like a great big family. I'm anticipating what God is going to do and can't wait to share it with you.

By the way, my fellow travelers say "Hello!" Thanks for your prayers! I'll blog again soon!