June 14, 2019 Day 1 Travel to Los Angeles

So, what do you have to do to head out for 50 days on the road? There are lists of things. And sometimes lists of the lists. What to do at work at Dick’s job at his University, Patti’s two jobs (at the counseling agency and the children’s hospital), with the house, with the bills, with various people. There’s reservations, the cruise and airline tickets. Multiple airline tickets. Reserving particular guided tours and museum entrances. Making sure all of the right people know that we won’t be around. Making sure all the wrong people suspect that we probably are still at home. Lights on the timer, neighbor watering some plants and checking on the birds. We stopped the mail and the newspaper delivery.

And then there is the list of things to do “when we get back.” This includes all the things that didn’t make the cut or could wait until August. That list was growing.

So, we finished up our jobs and woke up in the morning ready for the final, final packing. The

packing had begun weeks ago with stacks of things and lists of things and buying new things online, and at stores. But now the packing began in earnest. Partly, we had to deal with the dreaded 50 pound weight restriction on checked luggage. On the first try our bigger roller bag weighed 65 pounds. Sent back for revision. This went on through several iterations. Finally, the decision was we needed to bring a second large roller bag rather than a smaller one. A small amount of defeat, but reality. When one is going to travel for seven weeks, it included needing guidebooks, clothing for a variety of types of weather, as well as some host gifts for our family members that we are visiting and staying with. We had a bunch of heavy stuff! In the end, we needed two large roller bags (still not giant suitcases) both weighing around 50 pounds. We each also have a daypack crammed full of things that couldn’t go in the checked suitcase.  And then a lunch bag full of food and snacks and a purse. Everything that we needed for the next 49 days. A bit daunting, but packed.

The plane ticket was way more affordable out of LAX airport, so this meant we need to get

from Oceanside up to Los Angeles. We knew we did not want to pay to park our car for 50 days. Yikes, that is pricey! So, the first part of the journey was taking an Uber to the train, Amtrak out of Oceanside Transit Station going north for two hours to LAX.

The two hours was actually not to LAX.  We got to the main train station, and THEN we had to catch an airport bus out to LAX. Then, catch the airport shuttle to our very nice hotel 1 mile away where we would spend a very short night.

Although we made our reservations for 9:45 leaving on Saturday morning, when we checked in we found the flight had changed to 7:45 AM. Which meant we needed to get to the airport very, very early. But such is life in international travel. We completed day one having left behind a couple things that we forgot, but mostly we left behind our responsibilities and worldly cares. And now on to Toronto and then Barcelona. Let the adventure begin!