“Well, here we go”

Well, im starting this post while sitting on my second of four flights today. It has been an eventful day to say the very least. In the words of the great Julie Andrews, let me start at the very beginning…

My day started at 4 am, with a light buzzing from my alarm. As I woke up, I recall saying out loud to myself, “Well, here we go”… those 4 simple little words that meant practically nothing to me would become an interesting phrase that repeated itself over and over in my head at least half a dozen times today.

The getting up and getting ready part was very peaceful, in fact, the whole drive to Dallas was pleasantly uneventful Liesl did very well and I was doing swell myself with my large mug of hot Early Gray.

Today, I had two missions. The first was to get Liesl on a plane at DFW, bound for Portland by 8:20 am, The second was to put myself on a plane, also Portland bound at 12:30 pm. So, being my practical, always prepared self, I had done all my preparations the night before, everything was loaded in the car and I had mapped out my way. The first kink in the plan came around 7 am. I thought I was doing well. I was driving into the DFW airport a whole hour and 20 minutes early, well, then I got lost. For those of you who have never driven to DFW airport, don’t, you’ll thank me later. Anyways, I spent the better part of the next 40 minutes calling people and navigating my way to the AA cargo drop off. Finally I stumbled upon it and made my way in to fill out Liesl’s paperwork. At this point, it was 7:50, I was doing well, and then the words, “proof of health certificate” jumped out of the paperwork…. What? Health certificate, what’s that, you may ask, well, I’ll tell you. Apparently it’s a certificate from a vet clinic, proving that in the last ten days, your dog has been inspected by the doctor and cleared for travel. Very confused and all-together worried, I asked, “I have to have this in order for her to fly?” The lady gave me a look of, ‘well, obviously’. My stomached sank. I immediately called my parents and woke them up at a little before 6 am Pacific time and explained the situation. After about 40 minutes of my dad and mom trying to reason with the woman, it was determined that the only thing that could possibly be done to get her on any flight in the next 26 hours was to take her to an emergency vet clinic in Dallas and get her approved for travel for Sunday morning… which of course would make me fail my second mission of getting ME to Portland by 5:30 pm. I left the building with tears streaming down my cheeks, feeling completely at a loss…. 200 miles away from home, stuck with a dog and a plane ticket home. On a side note, my friend Luke was in Dallas for an engagement party this weekend, so our plan was already for him to come get my car from the airport and drive it back to Abilene for me, so it was good to know at least he was there.

Alright, they're telling me to put my "approve electronic device" away... To be continued...

Im back... I called to see if my flight could be changed and pushed back a day, for $365 extra, no thanks. So I was back to square one. I frantically spent the next 4 hours on the phone with my parents, Luke and my friend Kyle to try and square everything away. Kyle’s parents live in Dallas and were so gracious and kind enough to let me keep the puppy at there house for 24 hours until Luke could pick her up in tomorrow and drive her back to Abilene. Thanks to kyles fam, Liesl has a place to sleep and I can go home, and thanks to Luke, I now have a dog sitter for the week… I’m soooo very blessed to have the friends I do!

I drove all around and finally made it to Dallas Love in time to catch my flight. 4 flights and two delays later, I am safe and sound at home again… and very thankful to be.

... Oh and latest development, made it home with a SOAKING wet suitcase from the hurricane-type weather in Phoenix, thought it was just the outside, nope, I get to do a whole load of laundry cause all my clothes are wet, sigh haha, what can I say…

All in all, at the end of the day, I now have my feet firmly planted on that beautiful Oregon soil, tummy full of Burgerville and happy to hug my amazing family.

Well, I have been up for almost 21 hours, so I am going to crash now. Thanks for reading :)