A Day at the Airport

Well, that's an exaggeration. But when one gets up at five in the morning, by eleven it seems like it's been an entire day.

The GD had packed -- and repacked several times.

There was the saga of the turtles, which was related by the dotter at OmegaMom, one day before departure time. The Niece from Memphis, whose organizing skills kept everybody from going insane, masterminded the trek down to Sky Harbor in the Valley of Death (that's Phoenix, to most folks.) She insisted that we were all needed down there to handle the assortment of containers plus a very lively 5-year-old.

There she is, leading GD into the very spartan ticket counter area.

Here's all the luggage, including the 2 cats, 3 turtles and a car seat; the amphibians are in the large kennel at left and will fly in the hold of the jet.

I was astounded at all the paper work the dotter had to handle, largely because of the travelling zoo. Of course it turned out that she had lost the cats' health report and had to throw herself on the mercy of Alaska Airlines, with a promise to have proper papers faxed to SIL at the pickup end of the trip, just in case. All I can say is "bless the cell phone;" we couldn't have contacted the vet in Flagstaff and the SIL in Alaska otherwise. Of course, turns out the health certificates weren't demanded after all.

The little one inspects the tranked cats, scheduled for under-seat travel.

And they're off. (It's now been a handful of days since the Big Trek and already the kids have a bid in for a new house.)
As we left the airport, headed for the Cool Mountains, our car was thanked. An old buddy of mine thought that all cars in this age of automation should be equipped with a reply sign that says "you're welcome."