Today's the Big Day!

Saturday, June 6 - Ghana Adventure Day 1

Photos in slideshow section 1 - click HERE to view.

(back-dated post completed on June 24th)

I was up late on Thursday night and Friday night packing – trying to be sure I didn’t forget anything. We had just found out we were traveling today 4 days ago! We packed an entire suitcase full of food – freeze-dried meals, fruit snacks, Chex chocolate cereal bars, macaroni and cheese, teriyaki noodles, and more. We packed plenty of clothes – more than we had planned to bring. But, we weren’t sure what size Akos would be, so we brought extra. The Pack-It folders by Eagle Creek that we bought are wonderful! They made it so easy to pack and to reorganize the suitcases to distribute weight. We had 2 ½ suitcases full of medical supplies for the Korle-Bu children’s hospital.

While busy packing, I had looked at my flight itinerary and mentally put 2:00 pm as the time we needed to leave home. But by Friday afternoon, I had it in my mind that 2:00 was our flight departure! So, we got up early this morning and left the house at 10:00 am for our flight – on the way, I looked at my schedule and realized our flight didn’t leave until 6:05 pm! Well, at least we had plenty of time! Don and Elena already had big plans for the day – picking strawberries, making a pie, mowing the lawn and playing outside. (Tomorrow, they are going to the zoo.) So, we all went to Red Lobster near the airport and had a nice lunch together (I had delicious wood-fire grilled tilapia – yummy!) then they dropped us off at the terminal. We had maximum luggage – our humanitarian/missionary fare allowed us three instead of the usual two checked bags each (50 lbs apiece) – so we had 6 huge 47-pound suitcases, plus a large-as-allowed rolling carry-on, my purse/laptop bag, and Lydia’s backpack. Whew!

Our flight left right on time at 6:05 – it was only a 45-minute flight to Chicago, on American Airlines. Lydia was very excited to be on a plane again! We had only a little while in Chicago, and my plantar fasciitis was hurting me badly – it turned the international terminal was very far away, and after walking as far as I could, I finally requested a wheelchair. I just couldn't do it. Chicago was pretty crazy – TSA staff was cranky as all get-out! I couldn’t believe how crowded it was there.

The next leg of our trip was the transatlantic one. We boarded the BIGGEST plane I've ever seen - a 747! I had no idea these were so big, and even have an upstairs level with more seating! Each row in the main level (coach class) has 10 seats across...wow! We left at about 10:50 pm, as scheduled. The flight attendant was kind enough to inquire to all our nearby passengers about nuts – no danger (my daughter is highly allergic and has reacted just by being near an open container of nuts! I hardly slept at all. Lydia slept more than I did, but neither got much rest. About 2/3 of the way through the trip, I realized that our TV monitors has an option to watch a moving map showing our location at

different zoom levels, and also showed our altitude, time until reaching destination, outside temperature, etc. We were flying at 36,000 feet, and the temperature was about -60 degrees F! It was fun to watch as we approached and flew over Ireland, then crossed over to England – finally arrived in London! Still right on time.

We didn’t get to eat much on the plane – nearly everything had a nut warning. Fortunately, we had just a few extra minutes after security and all in London (though we started with 2 ½ hours to spare!), so we had lunch from Pret a Manger and brought what we couldn’t finish with us on the plane. They have fascinating sandwiches – prosciutto, Scottish salmon, and more. Lydia chose grapes, an apple, and mango-lime fruit salad. It was good! At our assigned gate, we got onto a tram instead of a plane – the tram took us over to a plane where we had to actually climb a staircase to get in. That was unusual and pretty fun. We noticed that the plane's engines were Rolls-Royce! Fancy-dancy!

We watched the moving map again – crossed the English channel and flew over France, then Spain, the Mediterranean, and then into Africa (first, over Algiers). Our favorite part was when the map showed we were over the Sahara Desert! We had a nice view of the desert, and Lydia was so excited by it! I did get a couple of pictures, but they don’t do it justice.

I got a lot of cross-stitching done – I’m making a portrait of an African woman for our coordinator and his family. I had forgotten my safety scissors, so we had bought nail clippers at the St. Louis airport. Not so easy to use for cross-stitching, but workable.

As we flew, Saturday melted into Sunday…