Travel prep

I slept very late this morning. We did not have a very late night but I took a muscle relaxer as I went to bed and those always knock me down for more than a night. Mama had already run to the feed store and eaten breakfast with Victoria before I left the bedroom. It was probably a good thing since we have to spend the night in the airport in Seattle, WA waiting on our connection to Juneau.

We did a few things around the farm and house this morning to get Victoria set up as best we could for the next two plus weeks without us; enough feed, enough food, a clean house and empty washer and dryer. On Thursday this week Brianna will move into the house with her and probably stay there until Grandma and Grandpa return – whenever that is. She is currently homeless waiting on her pending nuptials. It worked out well for her and Victoria to have her at the house in our absence.

Pastor Horton got us to the airport in plenty of time and we breezed through security as though we were in the airport in Amarillo. Of course, it was almost 6 pm. We were hoping that meant that the flight was not full. Boy, were we wrong. It was a completely full flight so they started boarding almost forty five minutes before the scheduled departure time.

We ended up sharing the row with a very interesting gentleman. His name is Joseph Castleberry. It did not take but a few snippets of conversation to know that he was a believer. He is the president of a college in Seattle – one I have never heard of – but prior to coming to that position he was a missionary in Ecuador and El Salvador for over twenty years. When Mama mentioned that I speak Spanish he began using the language in conversation. Having had to use it to translate to Daniella while she was with us made it easier than it would have ordinarily been to converse with him.

He was reading a book on his laptop and suggested that Mama and I would like a paragraph he had just read. He read the paragraph out loud to us and we asked who the author was. It was his work he had read to us; a work on the idea that the current immigrant influx into the US will eventually lead to a revival of faith. In his current position he tries to write a book per year. I have not read any of his work but I will probably get this one. As a gift he gave me a promotional publication from the Spanish version of the upcoming book. It is quite well written. It was a surprising pleasure to share the time with him.

Mama and I will catch our flight out sometime after 5 a.m. We are not sure where we will have to be to make the connection but we are at least at the correct airport. According to the staff here we will not know the gate to be at until about the time we need to be there. The information has not been made available yet.

So we wait through the night; uncomfortable and weary, but in pretty good spirits.