Traveling back to the U.S. was a protracted affair that began on Saturday, July 18th. Well, it began a lot earlier than that in the form of goodbyes, days of packing and cleaning, and the difficulty and paperwork that is closing out one's physical presence in France (insurance plans, bank accounts, cell phone contracts, etc.)
But! July 18th indeed arrived in the fullness of time. We were up at 5:30 a.m. to pack our final toiletries, eat a little breakfast, and load up the rental car. By 6:45 a.m. we were closing the door on our little courtyard. What a blessed year we spent there...
There wasn't much time to waste on nostalgia. I sat absolutely squashed and crooked in the back between the boys so the passenger seat could be loaded with bags. Naturally we'd rented the smallest, cheapest car that could possibly fit everything...and it only barely did so! Six+ hours later found us in Calais at the ferry port. Jesse dropped me and the boys with all of our luggage and went to return the rental car nearby, then we somehow got onto the ferry as foot passengers. None of this was easy as we had far more luggage than we could carry on our own at one time: 2 mid-size roller suitcases at ~40 lbs each, 2 car boosters (one with a back), 3 small carry-on size roller bags, 3 backpacks, 1 briefcase, 1 pocketbook, 1 ~40 lb duffel bag, 1 ancient non-rolling suitcase, 1 enormous shopping-type bag, plus a 4-ft poster tube box and—because we're SO smart—an antique plaster ceiling medallion that's probably 28" in diameter (too big to go in any of the suitcases so was bubble wrapped and cardboarded as its own thing). I'm laughing as I type because it was all so ridiculous! We had to keep explaining to people (going through the x-ray scanners, border control) that we were moving home after a year...that we don't usually travel quite so heavily!
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| Gazing back at the French coast from the passenger ferry... Goodbye, France! |
The ferry crossing was easy. Oh, we also were carrying a bag of food, so we had a picnic lunch as we crossed. :)
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| Jesse enjoying his very last French, chocolate eclair on the ferry. It had gotten a little mashed but was nonetheless delightful. :) |
Getting off the ferry nearly broke us, though. The car rental place in Dover, England was only open until 4 p.m. We were meant to have a couple of hours of leeway, but with the ferry delays, we landed with minutes to spare, and we sure didn't want to be stuck in Dover until Monday. It's a long story (remember all the luggage? and there was a shuttle bus involved...) but in the end I was outside in a restricted access area with all of the bags and the two boys while Jesse was sprinting 1.5 miles to the car rental!! My task was to move the pile in 10-20 yard increments from the restricted shuttle drop-off point into the ferry terminal itself, through the ferry terminal, and out to the front pick-up area where Jesse hopefully would arrive with the car, assuming the person he'd talked to on the phone indeed kept the agency open late. But within seconds of Jesse leaving, as if things weren't bad enough already, Josiah was nearly in tears because he had to find a men's room so suddenly and urgently that he feared a unpleasant accident. I couldn't leave everything sitting outside, I couldn't leave William in charge of it alone, Josiah couldn't wait --- so --- I told him to just go and find a bathroom, urging him to look carefully as he ran so he could find his way back again. William and I then began the pile moving process (and you can guess how useful William was). Eventually an employee came through and saw my plight (the area I was in was otherwise unpopulated) and —hero!— she rounded up a few guys AND a huge trolly thing to help move it most of the way. But at this point nearly 15 minutes had passed since I'd seen Josiah, and the staff confirmed that the one bathroom we came to was the only one in the terminal. Josiah was not inside. Again, long story, but he'd done the best he could to find us ----- he couldn't get back the way he'd come (no entry) so had exited the building and worked his way around outdoors to find us!! He was successful but by then we were gone (mommy fail, but in my defense, I'd assumed we'd encounter him retracing his steps while we were en route with the trolly). A uniformed somebody found him and got him reunited with us, so happy ending. It was an even happier ending when, another 30 minutes later, Jesse appeared with a car! And it had a big enough trunk to swallow almost everything so I could sit up front with just my purse at my feet!
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| Phew. We made it out to the curb! We were waiting for Jesse here, and I'd told the boys to guard the pile and look threatening while my attention was distracted. :) You can't see the second layer of stuff between the boys and the visible cases...but boy, we were traveling heavy. |
Next morning, Sunday, dawned beautifully. We got up early and had a great cooked English breakfast at the B&B, loaded the car back up, and made the 2.5 hour drive to Holtwood Methodist to join the family for church. We were a little late but nothing to worry about, all things considered. We stayed on at church all afternoon for a huge family reunion picnic. It was wonderful!! There were around 40 of us there altogether, some family members I'd never met, and we played and visited until after 7 p.m. The boys were in heaven with so many kids (and daddies) to play sports with the entire time. :) We eventually left with Kara, Matt, Carter, and Micah—who were visiting England for the first time in years!—and headed to Grammy's nursing home to have a very quick visit with her before going off to locate our airbnb room. It was 9 p.m. before we were out to find some dinner, but the boys were troopers.
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| Most of the reunion crew. A few had already left. |
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| Of course in England, even outdoor picnics involve multiple rounds of tea! Gosh I love it there... |
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| Cousins! Adam, Tasha, Kara, Chessie, Danni, and me. Just missing Tim (US) and Tom (Oxford). |
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| We were only going to "walk along the beach." You'd think we'd been at this parenting thing long enough to realize how ridiculous that was. Of course it resulted in soaking wet boys enjoying the ocean in very sandy underpants.... |
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| Saying goodbye to Grammy. I love you! |
And I think I'll leave it at that for now. The next day, Wednesday 22 July, we made the short drive to Southampton docks and boarded the ship for the crossing home! Eight days at sea! I'll post about that tomorrow.
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