Home in the US of A!!!

Our friends Annette and Roger took us to the train to see us off Tuesday afternoon from Issodun about 30 minutes drive north of Lignieres. Amidst tears, hugs and waves we boarded the SNCF 2nd Class coach with our 4 bags and 2 cats, Kelly's backpack, a bag of sandwiches and junk food, a bottle of Alsasian Reisling and 6 cheap French beers. We arrived about 5:30 pm in Sacramento after many long and arduous hours aboard the 2 UAL flights. The first was out of good ol' Chuck De Gaule's airport NE of Paris after a nights stay in the ETAP at Paris 2 in Roissy. Our room 305 had a great airshow of the landings at CDG 08R runway. One after another from the time we entered our room until about 10pm, every 2 or 3 minutes another aircraft would passover directly into our view towards the distant CDG. It was spectacular. Here's a photo.
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Then night fell and we soon collapsed in a heap on the bed, the cats having found themselves under the blanket and hiding on the upper bunk (it's an ETAP). Off to sleep to fly away tomorrow.
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In the morning I woke up before dawn to a glowing red sky and new airplanes just arriving flying into the rising sun. Spectacular!
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The balance of the time was a rush, breakfast downstairs, pack the cats, shower, dress and off to CDG we went. Onto the shuttle to everywhere but where we wanted to go...Terminal One. The driver said "No Problem" when I asked him when we would arrive at terminal one as I became worried about the 2 hr International wait time they demand these days. He dropped us off some distance from the number 2 terminal amid dense traffic and told us "downstairs". So down we went. lugging our bags and the cats before and behind us. Then to a tram that fairly flew underground, overground et al. to the basement of Terminal One. It took us 1.5 hrs to transit from the ETAP to the terminal of our desires. Not bad.

Mardi à 11:10 AM au loin nous allons!

Yes Tuesday is the Big Day but tomorrow is the Little Day...before. Tomorrow we leave for Paris via the choo choo from Issodun north of us to Paris Austerlitz (a large train station). From there we taxi to the ETAP Hotel for the night. I'll make us a picnic lunch for dinner and a couple of bottles of wine to consume. We'll watch TV and sleep the night away to rise in the morning and get to CDG Terminal 1 to our United Flight at 11:10am. Then the long, boring flight across the pond to Chicago's O'Hare Airport to change planes for the trip to Sacramento. We'll eat lunch at O'Hare as the food at O'Hare rivals most other airports in the US at least except for the ones at San Francisco. SF is the winner in the food dept at an airport. Even better than New York. But Chicago is quite good with wonderful pizzas, good local beers, great Hoagies and a range of Chicago-style barbeque that can't be beat.
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Our friends Sue and Dave came by to say so long to us, they are wonderful friends to have great fun to talk to and share our lives with. We will miss them dearly. We talked about our kids and the trip back to the states along with the dreamy 2 week stay we spoke of, HA! No chance of that!
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The house is being closed down, shutters closed, windows latched and the stiff little wires I installed as a final solution to the flying window opening trick are installed and wired firmly shut. The attic windows are closed and latched, the plastic sheeting we bought last week has been laid on the floor and my tools, some furniture and misc have been covered with drop cloths to keep the dust down.
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Tonight I will not be cooking, we're going out to eat at La Piz in St. Amand Montrond, my favorite pizza place. I'll order a nicoise salad and a Neopolitiana pizza. This is NOT Kelly's idea of a fun place to eat, she'd rather go somewhere else but this is close and the food is fine.