6 years 11 months 28 days

Day 2553. I went to bed after 1:30 am. At 2:30 am our alarms went off, and we got up, got dressed, closed up the remaining bags, and Randy took them to the car while I got the kids out of bed, got them to put their shoes on, and we walked out the door to our car. Randy buckled them up, and at 3 am we drove off right on time. It was exactly one hour to drive north to the Kansas City airport. With the stop at the gas station, it was 4:10 am, when we arrived at the rental car facility. Tammy and Emmy had both slept in the car but not Sammy.

Randy got all the luggage out of the car, then got the three car seats out and took them apart to put them into the two empty suitcases, then he put the little things back that had been in there back in, in the gaps, and closed them up. They were by far under the allowed weight limit. While he was working on that, I went to the restrooms with Tammy, then we checked out how far it was to the bus taking us to the terminal. Last time it was only a few meters, but this time it was a long distance. We absolutely needed to have carts, but we didn't see any anywhere.

When we walked back to the car and the boys, we suddenly saw two carts and took them with us. Thank God! It really helped us to get all our luggage all the way to the elevator, then one level down, and then to the bus. Every bus driver has had a different policy with the wheelchair. This one had Sammy come out of the wheelchair and sit in a chair, then he put the wheelchair with the luggage. It was a lot of work getting all the luggage into the bus.

We then drove a few minutes and reached the terminal. This time we had to pay $7 per cart, so we only got one. That meant it was challenging getting all our luggage into the building and to the check-in counter. Again, we had to take an elevator, then walk to the end of the hall where the Delta check-in was. And this time there was no "special assistance" counter so we had to line up with the "normal" people. The line was quite long but it was moving quickly. Once again the lady working there was really nice (it's in Memphis we've had mean people several times). We got our five suitcases checked in, plus Tammy's carry-on with all the toys, then we walked away much lighter.

Next we had to go through security. This time there was a wheelchair line, so we were immediately in the front of the line. I went first, then the kids, to have our passports checked, and Randy went last. And once again, there was an issue. This time that his first name was not spelled out in the computer, it only read "Ra", so the officer sent him back to the check-in counter to have it fixed. The children and I stayed at the security checkpoint. We had already started putting our stuff in the boxes to go through the scanner. Thankfully Randy returned relatively quickly. It wasn't as far to walk as it had been in Denver.

We put our stuff on the conveyor belt, then I and the kids went through. They always check people in wheelchairs and the wheelchairs for explosives. Sammy was a little scared. They even made me take him out of the wheelchair to check his chair. Then we picked up all our stuff and started walking in the direction of our gate . It was about 5:30 am so we still had some time until boarding, and everyone was hungry, so we stopped at one of the restaurants and got two breakfast burritos. While we were waiting for them to be ready, Randy took Sammy to the restroom to change his diaper. Once they were back and we had our food, we continued on our way to the gate. We had just walked away, when Randy made Tammy aware that she had left her panda bear at the table. Her niece had given it to her, so it was special to her, but she had refused to put it into the suitcase and wanted to carry it. Disaster averted.

We got to our gate where they tagged the wheelchair, then we got to go on first at 6:20 am, when they started boarding. She was just scanning our boarding passes, when a man called to us and pointed at Tammy's panda bear still in the seat. It was the second time she got lucky that someone had noticed her forgotten bear.

When we got to the plane, Randy got Sammy out of the wheelchair and left it there, then carried him into the plane and to our seats. We had three seats on one side, and Randy and Sammy sat on the other side of the aisle.

Our first flight to Salt Lake City was 2.5 hours. We had screens in front of us, so the kids were watching stuff. I started watching a movie as well. However, I was really tired, and Sammy was getting more and more upset. Obviously he was also very tired, and Randy was unsuccessful in trying to calm him down. And so I switched seats with him. As the third seat was empty, I lay down on the three seats, on my back, and had Sammy lie on me. He really liked, and I actually got him to fall asleep on me. So we both got a nap together - until they announced that we were descending and had to sit up and buckle up. I stayed with Sammy, sitting next to him.

It was nearly 8:30 am - going back in time for one hour - when we arrived in Salt Lake City. We got the wheelchair quickly and made our way to the gate of our next flight. We had three hours at the airport there. At some point we got a pizza that we all shared. Everyone was on their device, so no one was bored. Tammy and Emmy hadn't slept and had no intention of sleeping. They didn't sleep during the second flight either.

The second flight to Sacramento was just under two hours long. Everyone stayed up on this flight, and I was able to finish my movie from the first flight. Emmy kicked over his full cup of soda, getting his pants completely wet, and being so extremely tired, he cried hard for a while.

It was 12:15 pm when we landed in Sacramento. We walked through the airport to the baggage claim area, paid for a car and got all our luggage together. Then we had the challenge of getting everything to where the car rental shuttles were leaving from. Thankfully it was not too bad. We just had to get out of the building and cross the road, then we had reached the long line of people needing to get onto the shuttle. Thankfully they was always a shuttle there filling up, so people were getting on quickly. When one of the workers saw us with the wheelchair, he led us to the second and yet empty bus, and this time the wheelchair with Sammy had to be strapped in. Then Randy and the worker got all our luggage into the bus while I was inside with the children. Well, the third time disaster was not averted because Tammy's panda was left in the basket of the cart. Once Tammy realized that it was gone, she started crying really hard, even more so because of the accumulated tiredness.  

On the shuttle to the rental car facility, she was still unaware, and we started talking with some people around us. Once we got off, we had the challenge of getting all our luggage to the rental counter without any carts around. That meant having to move a few suitcases forward, then coming back for more. We had to walk a bit, then went to the counter where they sent us outside to the gold counter. The guy there still needed a bit time on the computer, then he gave us the rental car agreement and told us where to find the car. So more walking with all our luggage. And the car was sitting in the sun; it was quite hot. It was a really nice car, the nicest of the three we've had on this trip, and the car we'll have the shortest as we leave the US on Thursday. Randy opened up the two suitcases with the three car seats and started putting them together and into the car. In the meantime I took all three kids to the restrooms.

This time Randy loaded up the car pretty quickly. I had the address on my phone ready, so at 1:45 pm we finally started our drive south. We had 1 hour 45 minutes ahead of us. The reason we flew into this airport was that it had been the cheapest flight, i.e. the lowest number of miles to give up for the flight.

Sammy never slept during the car ride, but Tammy finally fell asleep right away. As for Emmy, he was fighting it and had a really bad fit, behaving terribly for quite a long time before he finally fell asleep as well. Thank God. Just before 4 pm we arrived at the Walmart that was only 5 minutes away from our hotel. I went inside to buy some groceries while Randy stayed in the car with the kids.

I went through the aisles picking up all the stuff that we needed until a rotisserie chicken (grilled chicken ready-to-eat) was the only thing left we needed. I asked an employee and found out that they didn't have any. Just great! I had to buy a frozen lasagna instead. Then I lined up where there was only one lady who looked like she was done. However, she had an issue so I waited, and waited, and waited, before she was finally taken care off and left. Once it was my turn to pay and I tried to hold my phone to the card reader, the cashier told me that I could not pay with my phone there. So I had to leave my cart with the groceries there, went outside and called Randy to come up and give me his card. Then I went back inside. When I got back to the cash register, she was taking care of someone who had A LOT of groceries, so I had to wait a while until she was done. It was $500 that he guy had to pay. He got his phone out and tried to pay with it, only to find out that was not possible. But he had his wallet with him and could get a card out to pay. After he was gone, I could finally pay and get my cart and leave. Once I spotted our car, I loaded the groceries in, and we were able to be on our way. As tired and exhausted I was, this grocery store trip had taken me to my limits. I just wanted to get to the hotel.

A few minutes later we pulled up in their parking lot. It was 4:45 pm. I went inside with Tammy to check us in. The guy there was really nice which was great. I got our keys, gave one to Randy, and went upstairs with Tammy to our room. When we walked inside, there was only one bed so I thought they had made a mistake, and we went back downstairs. I then found out that that was what we had booked as there was a sofabed in the room. So we went back upstairs, and I folded out the sofa bed that already had a sheet on it.

Everyone was really hungry, so eating was our first item on our to-do list. Then I discovered that while we had a fridge, we did not have a microwave. Just great! Randy took the lasagna downstairs where there was a microwave in the breakfast area to use. In the meantime we had some little things to help us with being so hungry. I was not only tired and hungry, but also thirsty. Once Randy returned, I enjoyed a few bites of lasagna and the water he brought to our room. It felt so much better after that and was ready to work.

I turned my computer on and got ready for my student. Yes, I had a student at 6 pm. While I was teaching, Randy and the kids ate the lasagna and the icecream we had bought. I finished at 7 pm, and everyone was ready to go swimming. We had all been excited to find out that the pool was open.

We walked downstairs and out of the building to the outside pool. The sun was already low in the sky, the pool was in the shade, and there was a cool breeze, even without being wet. The water felt quite cold at first, but after a while it was okay, and it was only the air that was cold. Randy actually never went into the water. We played for a while, but we were all cold so we got out sooner than usual and were eager to get to our room quickly and got into the hot shower right away. After that, it was bedtime for the kids. We still read a story, then we prayed, and they went to bed on the sofabed. However, they were still talking for a while before they finally fell asleep. As for me, I started working on the pictures but I was so extremely tired, that my eyes kept falling shut so I finally gave up and went to bed early, just before 10:30 pm.