Departure Day finally here!

Tuesday night passed very, very quickly.  Wednesday, August 24, was our long-awaited departure date, and the morning was FULL.  I had to go to Gold's for one last workout and to say goodbye to my gym buddies of many years.  Elaine and I then went to the County Health office for our final round of Hepatitis A-B vaccinations.  My friend Eric needed to come to Provo for an appointment, so he met me briefly at the bank, where I had some final business, to say goodbye.

We could not have gotten ready in time if it had not been for our ever-faithful friends Paul and Denise, who helped us shift and repack our suit cases to get the weight just right.  The final verdict: two extra cases at $200 each and two overweight cases at $75.00 each.  Worth it, we decided, to have everything we needed for our year-long adventure.

Paul loaded the Bailey's truck and then we gathered in the living room for a final prayer and blessings all around.  I entrusted Mother, Lindsay, our friends, our home, and its contents to the Lord in our absence.  And we were off to SLC.  Because Andy was just 10 minutes away at Temple Square in downtown SLC, he was able to come out to help us unload our suitcases and get them checked in.

The Bailey "Ninth Ward Truck" loaded and ready to go.

My family, Mother, Lindsay, and our other family, Paul and Denise McGuire

Mother waving a rather tearful goodbye.  Something about this scene conjured up images of my beloved Nana waving goodbye each time I left Cedar City

Andy took a break from Temple Square to help us get our luggage unloaded and checked in

Have some luggage!

The baggage claim tag says it all.  Tel Aviv and then on to Jerusalem!

It was a little overwhelming to get checked in, especially since Delta insisted that we needed Israeli visas.  That was because they could not find our return flight.  A call to BYU helped work that out.  Passing security was not too bad.  After lunch, we went down to the gate and then boarded our plane to Atlanta, the first stop on our trip.

Samuel thought that plane to Atlanta was pretty big.  Wait for the next one!