Our bags are packed.  We’re ready to go.

Weeks of preparation and suddenly it’s too late for “what have I forgotten now?”  Two 50 lbs suitcases, 2 carry-ons weighing at least 25 pounds each, and two backpacks.  175 pounds to schlep through the airport in Mexico City.  But lots of fun things for Julila and Conan and Lucia at the other end of the trip.

This is the first trip that we’re doing in one day.  Our first plane is scheduled to leave at 6:30 a.m., so we leave the house at 3:45, take the car to Crown Plaza Hotel (which will keep the car for half the price of the airport and shuttle you over.)   It’s 20 degrees outside.  20.  We’re wearing hoodies.

But all goes well and we make it to the airport with enough time for coffee and breakfast.   Which is lovely, because we ony have 50 minutes to change planes in Houston.  50 minutes.  And no, our gate isn’t going to be close.  We’re going from domestic to international.  United Air staff assures me, when I buy the tickets, that even half an hour will be enough time.  Ok.  We’ll see.

The plane from Louisville runs late – we land at 8:15.  Our plane leaves at 8:50.  We ask the flight attendant if we can get a cart to the gate — she says, “No, we don’t do that.”  Ok, we can make it on our own.  From Terminal B to almost the other end of the universe – Terminal E.  Tick, tock, tick, tock.  8:21, waiting for our carry-on luggage.

8:28.  Back packs on, pulling carry-ons behind, moving fast, down the hall, up the escalator, to the left, down the hall, up the escalator – heading for The Link.  8:31.  Tick tock.   Here it comes — jump on The Link and we’re whooshing through the air – Terminal C, Terminal D – oh, yes, D and E are together!  Ok.  We might make it.

8:33 – now for the gate.  But omg, it’ll take forever, no way, no way we’re gonna make it.  We can’t possibly get there in time, not in this lifetme, we’re going to be spending the night here and heading out the next morning.

But WAIT – there’s one of those carts!  We flag the guy down — Gate 21, please!  “Come on,” he says.  And off we go.  We’re going so fast, I can feel the wind in my hair.  Seriously.  Down a hall, turn, down another hall, people leaping out of our path and then – THERE IT IS!!  Gate 21  Going to Mexico City!!

I jump off, while Dee tips our rescuer, and the gate attendant says, “Are you on this plane?  Hurry!  They’re ready to go!!”

So we dash onto the plane, and fight our way back toward our seats — we were not actually the last ones on baord, but there is hardly anywhere to stow our carry-ons and people are jostling each other trying to find space —  but at last — somehow miraculously — we are on and buckled in and ready to go!  Woohoo.  I barely have time to email Julia “made it” before they tell us to put our devices on airplane mode — and we’re off.

Good times ahead.