Tiger Lilly and the Reverend Mother left for Romania yesterday morning though it will be a few more days before they actually leave the country since they have to undergo some training and orientation at the Global Expedition headquarters in Garden City, Texas, including meeting the other members of the group.
The Mall Diva and I got up at 3:30 Friday morning to take them to the airport for their 5:30 a.m. flight. RM and TL were up well before that (if, indeed, they slept at all the night before leaving). Just about everything was packed and loaded into the car the night before, including two fully-stuffed suitcases so heavy I seriously wondered how they were going to manage these without me. A lot of the weight and space is taken up by bedding that they have to bring along and which will ultimately be left behind at some point. I’m not sure why a 5:30 a.m. flight was necessary and apparently neither was Continental Airlines because they ended up canceling the flight after we dropped the missionaries off. They were ultimately delayed only a couple of hours before getting on their way, but it would have been nice to have spent those hours in bed.
Driving home from the airport the Mall Diva said, “Let’s go to breakfast!” That sounded like a good idea for, oh, three or four seconds, but my eyes felt so gritty I said I just wanted to go back to bed. To my surprise I was actually able to go back to sleep and when I got up we did go out. I’m always amazed at how much Eggs Benedict and hash browns the Diva can put into her tiny frame. There wasn’t any rest for the travelers, however, who still had a two-hour drive from the Dallas airport to get to their destination. At one point the Reverend Mother had to pull over on a quiet road to try and take a 20-minute nap.
No such luck. After about five minutes a truck stopped to see if they needed any help. The situation was explained and the truck drove off. Two minutes later another truck slowed for the same purpose and was waved off. Nice, friendly people those Texans. Fortunately the ladies arrived safely and Tiger Lilly emailed me the details. Their luggage was so full that in the end they decided not to take the laptop along, but they will be sending updates and/or posting from wherever they can find access in Texas and Oradea, Romania (which supposedly has numerous internet cafes).
