Tracy's Backpack

I am defeated by titles. The idea of titling a post feels like a crucial blogging step that I must get correct, and yet I write stream-of-consciousness and never really discover/solidify my thesis until the end (and sometimes not even then). Anyhoo, in three hours I leave for the airport, where I’ll have three hours to wait for my flight, followed by 3 hour layovers in both Cincinnati and Atlanta. It’ll take a little over 24 hours to reach Quito, Ecuador. (For the record, this flight pattern is abnormally long because we used miles to book the flight. If one were to pay real dollars for a flight, you could get there in 12-14 hours with only one connection). All of this anticipated airport waiting time had me leaning towards a “grey speckled walls”-themed title. But I’m pretty sure less than 10% of you guys follow the Vlogbrothers on youtube, and so the reference would be lost (and it wasn’t even that clever in the first place). For those who care, here is one of the John Green videos in which he reports from an airport, in front of the ubiquitous grey speckled walls. http://youtu.be/rxbxPIRAQts

I’ve packed, unpacked, and repacked my bags now. I may not have pared it down to the ideal combination of items, but I set up a self-imposed “repacking ban” an hour ago, because second-guessing (and third and fourth-guessing) can lead to madness.

Anyone else think this stockphoto lady has a weird baby’s foot? I mean, look at it. I’m sure it’s just perspective, but it’s starting to freak me out the more I stare at it. (or maybe not. Having worn size 11 shoes since the 6th grade, maybe half the population has weird and off-putting baby feet and I’ve just never noticed before now? Why do I get the feeling that the airport people watching may be more foot-centric than usual?).

Keeping my fingers crossed but it looks like none of our flights are affected by the fire at Chicago’s O’Hare this morning. *phew* And, two hours after packing my mini cribbage board and playing cards, Erin sent me a text asking if I know how to play cribbage. So that’s all working out nicely.  Ecuador has been next on my dream adventure travel list for five years. I mentioned it in December during a larger chat about travel. The next week I got an email: “soooo…how serious are you about wanting to travel this fall? :D” We planned through the spring and were confirmed by June. I just can’t quite believe that it’s really real, this thing that’s been percolating in my brain for so long now. Since I can’t worry about packing anymore, guess I’ll return to obsessively using Duolingo to try to learn Spanish. Adios amigos!