Our adventurous travels from Mexico City to Denver

I must share our travel adventures while they are fresh in my mind. I know there is humor in all situations so even as all of this was unfolding the writer in me was thinking, "this could make a very interesting story".

The weeks prior to our flight to Mexico were anything but relaxing. We had worked non-stop to pull together this move and we were nearing the point of exhaustion when we left our beloved Taxco and headed for Carlos and Susana's home in Mexico City. We spent a busy day with them and got up very early the next morning to go to the airport for our flight back to Colorado.

We were very loaded down with extra large luggage as well as additional pieces. We also had our little cat Sally who was NOT a happy traveler. Being of Siamese decent she howled every moment that she was in her pet carrier. Everything was tremendously heavy so walking from one end of the airport to another took great effort and balancing skills to get each piece of luggage stacked on top of each other so that they could be pulled. When we arrived at the airport I told Carlos that I needed to go to immigration in the airport to turn over our Mexican resident visas. Carlos was confused and tried to convince me that I didn't need to go to immigration. I finally was able to show him letters, written in Spanish, that i had to write for the Taxco immigration office regarding our move back to the States. He began to understand the situation so we proceeded to the immigration office.

When we arrived at immigration the office was closed and there was a line of people ahead of waiting for the office to open. We waited past 7:00 AM and Carlos finally found someone who told us that the office wouldn't open until 8:00. Well, with a 9:30 international flight I knew that we couldn't wait until 8:00 plus wait through the line of people, which someone estimated it to be an hour of people ahead of us! We didn't know what else to do but leave immigration and head for the United Airline ticketing area.

I had made on-line reservations but I was unable to do a boarding pass before we left for Mexico City. So this was a time consuming process with international travel, extra luggage, and a pet reservation. I was desperately trying to keep all of the information and all of our paperwork straight. I have never traveled internationally without a mission's leader or my husband. So keeping track of everything was new to me. Apparently I missed a very important detail and that was that we needed to have our visas stamped at the immigration kiosk, which was different than the immigration office where we had gone earlier.

In any case, we got our boarding passes and headed for security. At security we said our last goodbyes to Carlos and proceeded through the line. Security in Mexico was different than in the States. I had been told that I needed a certificate of health for our kitty but they never looked at my paper but demanded that I take her out of the pet carrier so that they could examine her. It was not my idea of a good time to take a hysterical cat out of a pet carrier and let someone examine her in the middle of the airport. I had terrible visions of her getting lose and spending the rest of her life dodging Mexican officials in the Mexico City airport! Bethany and I worked together to get her out of the pet carrier and despite her strong protests we got through the examination process.

Once we were through security we decided to grab a quick bite to eat. Everything went more slowly than we anticipated and we were a bit late in getting to our gate. Everyone had boarded but it was still 1/2 hour before take off. They looked at our boarding pass and our immigration forms and realized that we had Mexican resident visas. They told us that we had to get our visas stamped at the immigration kiosk but to hurry hurry hurry because the plane was getting ready to take off! We flew in the direction that they told us and arrived at another line for immigration but no person behind the desk! We waited a good 15 minutes without any hint of a person to help this line of people through immigration. Nathaniel flew back to the gate and told them that there wasn't anyone to help us. After another 10 minutes of paging and calling, finally an immigration officer showed up.

All the people in line told us to go to the front of the line and the flight attendant was standing there, CORRE! CORRE!!! (RUN! RUN!) We flew to the gate and they rushed Nathaniel and me through but detained Bethany! The flight attendant kept telling me to "CORRE!" onto the plane but my daughter was being drug tested and searched outside of the gate! I was so concerned about what was happening to Bethany that I couldn't think straight about what seats we had. The flight attendant, was impatient and demanded to know what seats we had. Meanwhile I'm carrying very heavy bags and a cat! Thankfully I saw Bethany board the plane and was so relieved to see my little girl!

At that time we did not know it but in all the confusion Bethany had lost her boarding pass for our flight from Las Angeles to Denver!

We got our seats but could not get the pet carrier (it was a very small one that met all the size regulations) to fit under the seat. The flight attendant kept telling me to stick it under my seat but I couldn't get it to clear the seat in front of me. So I handed poor Sally to Bethany to see if she could get the pet carrier under the seat. She could not so she tossed the now hysterical cat back to me. Finally the flight attendant realized that the pet carrier would not clear the seats so she went to find a solution. In the end I was moved to Economy Plus which has a wider seat clearance and Sally's carrier fit fine.

At that point I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I really missed Gary, not only for his care and leadership but I missed the comfort of having my dear husband to share in the stress and difficulty of the moment. I missed his arm around my shoulders and his fingers intertwining mine as the plane taxied down the runway and prepared for takeoff. It took me a good hour of flight to really feel normal again after such a hectic and traumatic boarding experience.

When we landed at LAX we went through customs with total amazing ease and I thought our troubles were behind us. I got a cup of coffee and we sat down to have some ice cream. We still had time to spare but we decided to proceed through security and then onto our gate. When we walked up to the security gate they noticed right away that the pet carrier did not have a tag on it. I told them that I had made reservations and paid for her flight about three weeks ago on-line and that we had come from Mexico City and were checked on with our pet without a problem. We were pulled aside while two people tried to find our pet reservations. We spent a good 1/2 hour trying to locate the reservation and payment to no avail! Finally I told them that I would just pay it again and take it up with them later if there was a double payment on my bank statement. They agreed to this and promptly charged me and tagged Sally's pet carrier.

 We then proceeded quickly to security with only 20 minutes before our flight was to take off! When we were asked for our passports and boarding passes at security, Bethany's was no where to be found! I had all three passports (thank God) and Nathaniel's and my boarding pass but somehow Bethany's was missing! Bethany's eyes filled with tears and we all realized that with all the time they took trying to locate Sally's reservations, we were desperately close to missing our flight once again! We ran back to the ticket counter. The ticketing agent told us that we would never make our flight that she would just issue other tickets for the next flight. No big deal right? Well, she didn't tell us right away that these tickets would be standby. She also didn't tell us that this standby flight was the LAST flight to Denver for the day!

When we did receive this information I nearly begged her to let us try to make our original flight but she assured us that we would not make it. So we thanked her and took the standby tickets and went through security.

When we got to our gate we were told that it was a full flight and that it would be unlikely to have three available seats. At this point Bethany began to cry in earnest. I think the most desperate issue was the fact that we had our cat in the airport with the very real possibility of spending the night. She had been in her pet carrier at that point for 12 hours without a litter box, food or water. I couldn't imagine what we would do with her if we couldn't get a flight to Denver. Visions of "Home Alone" kept going through my head and I nearly began to offer to pay people for their seats and thoughts of begging were close at hand! We began to talk about one of us going and the other two staying behind. Then I started to cry at the thought of some of us being left behind and alone, on the 19th of all dates! (Gary died 6 months ago that day.)

As our discussion unfolded we decided that if there was one seat that Nathaniel would take Sally and go on to Denver while Bethany and I would stay behind. I also talked Bethany into going with Nathaniel and leaving me alone should there be two seats. I stood there watching Bethany cry while I prayed for God to make a way where there seemed to be no way! The plane boarded and there was no seat for any of us. So I made a last effort and asked someone else and somehow they found one seat for Nathaniel and Sally! So off he ran into the plane and out of our site.

Bethany and I felt so very much alone but I decided to try to bring some good out of this situation and turn something bad into a mother and daughter adventure! And that is exactly what we did. We found a hotel in LA that had an airport shuttle and checked into a nice hotel room. We enjoyed our first night in the States by taking a bubble bath, being thrilled at the amazing products and Walgreen's and going out to eat together. It really was a bonding time and ended up being quite a fun time that we spent together.

Nathaniel and I were able to msg on FB so I knew that he and Sally arrived in Colorado safely. So it was all good!

Bethany and I flew to Colorado on a 6:00 AM flight the next morning and we all reunited in the Denver airport where Judi Davidson picked us up! And thus ended a very long 2 days of travel from Mexico City to Denver!