Day 0: Leaving for London, 30 April 2013

I wound up working entirely too late on Monday night, trying to finish everything on my to-do list before being out of the office for two weeks. I failed. I did, at least, get all but one thing done, which I hope to actually finish by the end of this week anyway.

I got home around 4:30am. No sweat, I still have 9 hours before I have to leave for Deb's house in Plant City. Deb is giving Amy and I a ride to the airport, and our cars will be safe at the Plant City Gang's house (where most of the Stone Hill meetings take place), while we are away.

I reached the end of my ability to stay awake around 6:30am, so I took a bit of a nap. However, I slept a bit too long, and had to rush getting everything done after I woke up. Packing was a bit unusual since I didn't have to play "toss the cat out of the suitcase" a single time. I usually have to throw them both out several times. Nor did either of them lay on top of the clothes on the bed while I was gathering everything. Usually they have to lay on everything to make sure I take a sufficient amount of cat fur with me when I travel. I guess they knew something was up, and they were too busy sulking.

The last bit of my packing was more like throwing, sorting the electric plugs by "need vs don't need" in an effort to not take anything along unless I actually would need it. There was also a bit less time to finish than I originally planned because when I double-checked the departure time it said 6:15pm, and not 7:30pm, which it had originally been. I had completely forgot that the flight was leaving earlier!


I finally left at 2:45pm, stopping at the apartment complex office to pay my rent since I wouldn't be in town on the first to do it. I also left them a letter letting them know that Heather Dryer has my permission to be in my apartment while I am gone, and to deal with them for any emergency that might arise. She'll be taking care of The Kitty Boys while I am away. They like her. Loki even lets her pet him sometimes.

I actually hit the road for Deb's house at 2:55pm, and, thanks to what has to me some minor miracle, made it there at 3:20. That's the fastest I've ever made it there. 

Amy Kerr was already there, and since we would be taking my car to the airport we transferred Amy's luggage from her car to mine, said our good-byes to everyone, and headed for the Tampa International Airport.

Again the traffic gods smiled upon us, and we were driving into the airport at 4:15pm. Whew!

Perfect! There was a parking space at the curb right in front of the British Airways entrance, so I pulled up and we all got out of the car. We were all taking the luggage out of the back of my Honda Fit, when Amy says "Where is my computer bag?" The ultimate answer was "back at Deb's house in a chair." Deb volunteered to try and make it back to her house and back to the airport before our flight actually left, so she took off to do that.

Amy and I went inside the airport and got into the check-in line for British Airways. I reached into my pants pocket to retrieve my iPhone, only it wasn't there. In the confusion over the discovery of Amy's missing computer, I forgot to grab my phone. To be honest, I might have forgot it anyway, with all the rushing. Who's to say? It was hooked into the charger and the car's speaker system, since I had been listening to a book on tape when I was driving out to Plant City.

So, now we've both left something behind that we really wanted to take along. I could live without my phone since I have the iPad, but Amy really wants to have her own computer.

We got all checked into our flight, then decided to sit around the main airport area for a bit, to see if Deb was going to be able to make it home and back to the airport in time. After around 30 minutes of waiting, I suggested to Amy that we just ask Deb to ship the computer to her in the UK. If it went overnight, it might even beat us to our hotel!

Amy called Deb, who had just reached her house, verifying that there was no way she was going to make it back to the airport in time. I really do appreciate that she was willing to try! Amy and Deb negotiated which method to ship the computer, and the plan was to put my phone in there as well. It should arrive at our hotel by Friday. Overnight turned out to be... cost prohibitive.

Amy was rather peeved at herself for leaving the computer behind. It meant she also left her paper where she was writing a Fan Fic story. I found a store in the airport that sold legal pad-style paper, so that problem was solved.

We headed for the security check, and on to our gate without further incident. The plane even boarded on time.

No WiFi on the plane, so thus ended the departure adventures for the trip to London.