Monday, July 25, 2016

Wheels up in 24 hrs

Our departure date is almost here!  In total, we are bringing 13 checked bags, which are filled with clothing, food, laptops, tablets, school supplies, feminine hygiene products, and 300 sky lanterns (more on this later).

I've been stressed a bit because Delta charges $285 for excess baggage:  We have 5 excess bags so unless I can sweet talk the folks at Delta, we are going to incur $1400 in luggage charges alone.  With all this luggage, I've also been stressing about how we get all this luggage to the airport!  My friend Mark Tobin offered to meet us at our house at 4am tomorrow (yes, AM) to fill his car up w our luggage and follow our Uber to LAX.  THAT is a friend!!

The other logistical obstacle I am trying to solve is the rental car while we are there.  Last time, Crossover was able to rent a truck to transport us from the airport to the school and back and forth from the hotel to the school.  They no longer have access to that truck so we had to rent a car.  Needless to say, Jenny is not very comfortable with me driving around Ghana.  Besides the fact that we would stick out like a sore thumb, Jenny has never been there and with all the terrorist crap going on around the world, she would feel more comfortable if we had a local driver...I am waiting to hear back if we have secured one or not.

For the long flight, I got a prescription for Ambien (11 hour flight from JFK to Accra).  Jenny was pretty nervous about giving the kids ambien for the first time on the flight so she conducted a test run this past weekend at home (secure environment).  Jacob was fine, just pretty groggy for about 24 hours after he woke up.  Savannah, however, was another story: Her imagination got the best of her and she was convinced there were people in her room watching her sleep.  I cant imagine what would have happened if Jenny and I were ambien'd out at 30k feet w Savannah freaking out about a gargoyle on the airplane wing!