You will not be the same

Tomorrow is finally today. As I stood in the garage before we left, I said "I can't believe I'm actually leaving now". It seems like ages ago that my flights were booked (Sept 29), and that somehow today would never get here. But it has and here I am at the Ottawa Airport waiting for the first of many flights.

But first, the rest of my day. I did some bad planning in that everything was ready and packed yesterday - which left me nothing to do today except move things between suitcases, weighing them with each little change, and then there was some pacing... and stressing... not too much stressing though as actually I had a strange detached calmness for most of the time.

I had a long goodbye with the dogs and Grace, telling them I'd be back in 35 sleeps and not to worry. I tried not to choke up and was mostly successful, but I probably freaked them out just a little bit.

Then out to the car - OMG - for the first time in its 14 years the Subaru did not start. Carm gave it a few tries, we waited 10 minutes and then tried again. Whew. It started. So off we went... in the freezing rain... which petered out just as soon as it got my stress levels up! We made it to the restaurant for lunch where we had some Vietnamese noodles, and then it was to my parents to pick them up. I had quite the sending off party!

As I left everyone to go through the longish security line I was singled out to have a swab done of my shoes and hands and then voila! to the front of the line - pretty good luck huh!


There are a lot of little kids and babies at the gate including one little boy running circles in front of me (I hope he wears himself out!)... Travelling by myself I wonder who I'm going to be sitting next to.

I only have 1hr 40 min in Vancouver but I hope to post an update then. I can't believe it is actually NOW! Happy Trails!

'Do you promise that I will come back?' ask Bilbo. 'No' answers Gandalf. 'And if you come back, you will not be the same.'