Travel Days (Part1)

It finally happened.  We picked up the rental car, packed up the dogs, drove to Baltimore, boarded a plane, and now we are officially residing in Italy.  Sounds simple, right?  Let’s back up a little…

The Sunday before we left, we met up with my family, John’s parents, and John’s sister Dianne for once last family lunch.  It was definitely a memorable lunch.  I think we had enough salad dressing on the table to last us all a solid month!  We had little cups everywhere!

Love this picture of John and his dad.  Unfortunately, we failed to get a picture of the whole group.  Bummer.

After lunch, my parents and sisters dropped us off at the airport where we picked up the rental car.  Earlier in the week we had reserved a “standard” size SUV to drive at Baltimore.  We needed something large enough to fit all of our luggage, the 2 dogs, and Randy’s giant crate.  When we got to the counter, the guy let us know that we had received a free upgrade!  Yay!  Or not.  Turns out our “upgrade” was to a nicer crossover vehicle, but was a downgrade in size.  We walked out to the parking lot, took one look inside, and made our way back to the rental counter.  There was no way Randy’s crate was going to fit, much less the rest of our stuff.  Thankfully, after we explained our situation, the lady at the counter found us a nice, grande, Toyota Sequoia.  We were in business!

We made our way back to Sumter, were we had been staying with John’s parents, and got to work packing up the car.  It’s a good thing that Sequoia was available because we packed. it. out. 

 

Once we were all packed up, we were on our way!  It was such a surreal moment.  We had been talking about and planning for this move for so long, it hardly seemed real that we were on our way to Baltimore to catch our flight to Italy.  The drive itself was pretty uneventful (thank goodness!).  The dogs did great and Randy, our car sickness prone pooch, was happy and comfortable the entire ride. 

I might have hit up a couple Chick-Fil-As along the way.  Had to get one last chicken sandwich and milkshake before we left, right?

John and I came up with a plan of attack at the hotel for how we would get the dogs in the airport and return the rental car, because of course the only way back to the terminal from the rental car drop off was by bus, and there was no way we were getting Randy and his crate on that bus.  We were able to go to the airport early in the morning and drop off all of our luggage at the USO.  What a HUGE blessing that was!  There was NO WAY we could have done it otherwise. 

Our flight wasn’t scheduled to depart until around 11pm, so to kill time before heading to the airport, we went this great park the hotel staff about.  It was right behind the airport at the end of one of the runways, so every few minutes there was a plane flying overhead making their final approach before landing.  It was a spectacular show.

 

This one was super excited to be at the park!

Later that afternoon, John dropped the dogs and I off at the terminal and helped me load them onto a luggage cart.  My determined self decided to push 150lbs of dogs and crates into the terminal myself.  As you can probably imagine, it didn’t go quite as smoothly as i would have liked.  I got into a fight with a curb, and nearly lost the load going through the door.  Of course, I had many spectators with no one offering to help me over the curb.  Finally one college aged girl, with a load of luggage herself, gave me a hand.  Bless her!

Let’s just say a luggage cart is not a stable way to move live cargo.  Randy managed to turn the cart over (with Biscuit on top) 3 times!  No worries, I managed to catch Biscuit before she toppled over each time.  Finally, someone in the terminal notice the trouble we were having and magically produced a much, much larger cart, and we were problem free after that. 

We got in line for check-in around 4:00, which turned out to be a great thing.  Check-in began at 5:30 and that line got really long, really fast.  It was kind of a fun wait, because we got to meet other families and couples who were moving as well.  We flew the Rotator which is a chartered military flight that leaves from Baltimore each week and makes a stop in Ramstein, Germany; Aviano, Italy; and then makes a stop at one of the bases down range.  It then comes back to Aviano, back to Ramstein, and then finally Baltimore.  The Rotator is a very efficient way for the military to get families and deployed (or deploying) service members overseas.

We chose the Rotator largely because we were traveling with the dogs.  Most commercial airlines impose a seasonal embargo against flying pets in the summer months because of the heat.  When flying the Rotator, they have a climate controlled holding area for pets, so they are not in danger of over-heating. 

While we were checking in, we over heard someone mention something about United recently aquiring the contract for the Rotator.  In that moment, everything came to a screeching halt.  “WHO has the charter?”  “Did that lady just say United.”  “Lord, save our dogs.”  One thing we were hugely resting in, was that we would not be flying United to Italy.  At the counter, we got the confirmation we were dreading.  Just 2 weeks before, United was granted the contract.  Well, here’s goes nothing…