hjj1

Monday, August 21, 2006

Our alarms went off at 2:45 this morning--wow! That meant 3 hours of sleep-or less. Our goal was to leave home at 3:45 am. Well, we got going at 4:15 or so. But we made it to our first destination exactly on time--7:30 at the IKEA parking lot. There we met a couple from PA and filled out our luggage quota with two army duffle-bags of gifts and supplies collected for Ecuador by a VBS. We had a fun time visiting. They had just been in Ecuador this spring, and we had a lot of other common interests. Good send-off.

Next stop ~ Park-Ride-Fly. A shuttle-bus pulled up right after us, so we moved 10 suitcases/duffels and 5 carry-ons aboard, and off we drove to the airport. The driver's dramatically spoken message to the dispatcher – “… and full of luggage!” – was hilarious! We always do that to our poor shuttle drivers. Why can’t we travel like normal people?! But we just feel like we’re wasting space and a big opportunity if we don’t bring as much as we can possibly fit. This time most of our extra space is filled with telephone equipment – which is, after all, why we are going down. They need Dad for more telephone work! This spring they cut a cable to the school. Plus Dad has been dreaming about the updates he would make on the system ever since he came back a year and a half ago.

Since telephone equipment isn’t the norm for hauling around in suitcases, we stuck an explanatory letter in each one – in Spanish. Yeah, we had to have someone from HCJB in Ecuador send that to us. Hopefully that will help us get through customs ok.