I love traveling with Carter. He always seems to know exactly where to go, when certain paperwork is needed and everything goes smoothly when he’s along. He helped his little sister scan her passport and coached her through the eye scan (hold still, look up) as I was passing through the security gates myself. After boarding, he handed me the tickets and as I was about to tuck them away he reminded me, “leave them out. They are going to want to check them one more time at the door to the plane.” Of course. They always do. He organizes the tickets into the correct passports the way his dad always does, instead of using my system of bunching them all together and then fumbling through one by one, always getting the one I need on the last attempt.
In Amsterdam he zeroed in on our next gate, leading the way and checking the boarding times. He’s always my gate finder, zone seating rememberer, and carrier of any extra bags. With him doing the navigating all I have to do is make sure we all stick together and keep everyone fed. When I stopped to get a bottle of water, he followed, handing me a boarding pass at just the right moment because I always forget that they need to scan my ticket when I buy something at Duty Free. Generally I get denied and then am irritated because I have to go back to our seats and dig it out of my bag or I just don’t buy it at all.
When we finally arrived in LAX we had 3 hours to get our bags and clear customs before checking in for our Southwest flight to San Jose. We were fast off the plane and then Carter steered us right toward the diplomatic line for customs and we breezed through for the last time with those black passports. Once we picked up our luggage we had to hike all the way to Terminal 1 from international. Right as Josh was texting me this info Carter told me, “we need to go upstairs to departures and then walk over.” I don’t know how his internal GPS knows the right way to go, but it works.
Once we made it to domestic we had to pass through security again and every one of our backpacks was pulled for extra screening because we had left our computers inside. There were no signs and the guy told us to take off our shoes, but nothing else. I explained to the lady that we were sorry, but we didn’t know because every airport is different. The screening lady rolled her eyes and sneered, “At every airport in America, TSA requires that electronics be screened separately. You should know that.” Maybe, but I’ve only flown domestic one time in the last 8 years and as Carter pointed out later, “Even Uganda has signs about their electronics policy and they really don’t care.” Truth.
At the end of the summer our plan is for Carter to fly Camille and Caleb back to Abu Dhabi solo and I have no worries about how they will fare with him in charge. They are less likely to get lost with him leading the way than with me.
Finally on our last leg after about 24 hours of travel. So happy to finally be in California. Only 1 hour of flying left!
Hello, California coastline! We flew following the 101, the same as if we were driving, but at 6xs the speed. After arriving in CA we were supposed to pick up the rental car that Josh had reserved for us, but issues arose and I found myself without a way to get 4 people, 4 backpacks and 6 suitcases all the way to Santa Cruz.
Thankfully I had enough mental reserves to figure out (after considering several options) that the easiest way would be to call an Uber. Of course, I don’t have Uber on my phone anymore since it’s illegal in Abu Dhabi and my phone kept failing on my attempted downloads. I deleted a few apps (bye Netflix!) to make space and it worked on the 3rd try.
Then it took 3 tries to get a car that would take us all the way to Aptos and have room for our luggage (sorry Prius, that’s a no-go), but bless the guy in the Hyundai that made it all fit and dropped us off at Apple Lane 75 minutes later. Thankfully the kids were champs throughout it all and patiently sat on the curb while I sorted out the transportation problem. When we finally made it home I dropped the luggage and crawled in bed. I thought I’d be feeling victorious, but that last change of plans took all of what was left of my adrenaline.
Unfortunately when you fall asleep at 7, you wake up at 4 am looking like this:
We were up with the chickens and they had breakfast waiting for us. Sweet home California!