In which the adventure begins.

Ryan and I took our first flight segments of the summer (of the year?) on Friday, flying from Sacramento to Salt Lake City to St. Louis. That alliterative journey logged us two flight segments, three time zones (on the ground), about twelve traveling hours (counting from when we left for the airport and then arrived home), and 1,975 miles. Thus begins this summer's journey. We'll keep track of similar stats at the end of posts from now on.

Moving out of our cute house in California was an adventure on its own, in no small part because, with an inspection scheduled for Thursday morning, I woke up one week ago with the worst case of strep throat I've ever had. Because you know, moving with one-year-old Oisin was't gonna be crazy enough. My throat was so swollen I was worried about breathing (yes, probably an overreaction), I had a 103 degree F fever (chills and hallucinations oh my), and I could barely swallow liquids. Because of that last factor, I let myself get so dehydrated the gave me IV fluids, which, shockingly, are a great pick me up when you can't drink. After those, getting the fever under control, and some hefty meds for the pain, I was at least able to sleep, but I spent much of Tuesday out of commission while Ryan tried to pack the house and the incredibly gracious Ant 1 TA's finished my grading. Wednesday and Thursday were nutty, but thanks to wonderful friends and family helping us, we managed not to lose our whole deposit, get most of our stuff into a VERY full storage locker and pack the things we'd need (albeit rather chaotically) into bags for the flights Friday.

As for those flights, I gotta tell you, if I didn't love Oisin before, I would now. He's at an incredibly sweet age right now and I'm really having to work hard to supress the realization of how much I will miss him this summer. He slept the whole first flight after watching us take off, then peacefully and mostly quietly played the whole second one. Gearing up to be a great world traveller someday.

Now we're at our first base camp, Ryan's folks' place in southern Illinois. I'm sitting in a guest bedroom surrounded by field clothes, vaccutainers, backpacks, muzzles, toiletries, cameras, power adapters for the whole world, travel guides, and compression sacks. I'm packing most things first thing tomorrow morning, then making a trip to the mall for Oisin's one year portraits and a few last minute necessities. Ryan and I are both at the point where we're antsy. The last 48 hours before a the field are the weirdest mix of tempos--everything goes rushing by, but it still takes ages to get out the door...

'till next time.

Cumulative stats:
2 flights
3 time zones
12 traveling hours
1975 miles
1 country