Travel Day

At 2:25 am, I woke up thinking, “Oh! I need to remember to bring my compression socks that Jared gave me for the flight home since it will be the day after the race.”  “And I need to send a photo of that receipt to the financial secretary and get my running shorts that Adrienne washed yesterday.”  There was just on and off sleep after that.  At 4:45, I got up to run.  It sure was dark out there.  It was fun crossing 500 West without any cars around.  There isn’t much going on in Provo at that time of day.

We left at 5:55 to get Rebecca from Grandma’s house and drive the airport.  The drive went well with no real slow downs.  Rebecca and Adrienne chatted a lot with me mixing in a sentence every now and then.  I’ve been so excited to go to Japan again and have been thinking about all the people I’ll get to visit with and the things we’ll get to do.  With all that, I hadn’t thought much about having to say goodbye to my family.  So, I didn’t have a lot to say on the way there and had a hard time saying goodbye to Adrienne.  She was so sweet to drop us off and trust that the kids would all make it to school without her help.  She had made French toast for them for when they would get up.  I always knew I married the right woman.  I also married in to the right family, so it will be another incredible trip being with Rebecca.

As we pulled up to the curb, Aaron and Karen Fletcher got out right behind us.  We got checked in and had time to wait at the gate for a while.  Rosy showed up with her son, William.  We sat next to some deaf people and Rebecca told me to let them know to come sit in the chairs next to us after we moved over.  I signed that to them and one man was happy to move over.  Karen asked how I knew sign language.  I told her my story while explaining that I’m very limited in it especially in reading it.  Turns out, she knows quite a bit.  She ended up talking to them for quite a while.

On the flight, the attendant got to us and asked what we would like.  Rebecca got water and I asked for milk.  He didn’t have any milk, so I asked for ginger ale.  Rebecca started talking to him and with being distracted, he poured me a Sprite.  After he gave it to me, he asked if that is what I asked for.  I said, “No, but I like Sprite just as much”.

We were so tired.  I think you can see it in my eyes if not Rebecca's.

We met all the others flying with us in Denver and got to know a lot of them better or for the first time.  The man that took over from Kent Perkins (the race director of STG that is on a mission now with his wife) is from Arco, ID.  That’s right next to where Rebecca lives.  They know a lot of the same people and had fun visiting while I took care of a few school things before taking off. 

The 12 and a half hour flight was wonderful!  We were on a Boeing 787 (Dreamliner).  We looked up some things about the plane after Grandpa found out our plane.  It flies at 40000ft, but has a relatively high cabin pressure, so there is more oxygen available to use.  They way jet lag is not so bad with that.  It's also high in humidity.  It's quieter than other planes and has LED window thingies that were fun to see, but we never knew if it was day or night.  We watched a couple of movies and got some sleep.  We had fun joking about how much sleep each of us got.  I kept telling Rebecca about her 8 hour nap.  She felt like it was very short, but I did watch most of Spiderman while she slept.

After the breakfast, the flight attendant was cleaning up the trays and from down the aisle Rebecca noticed that he would disappear, then reappear.  She started saying "Peekaboo!" every time he popped up.  We both started laughing in one of those fatigued laughter states where you're laughing about something so silly, but can't stop.  When he got near us, we were going to say something, but realized he probably wouldn't see the humour in it the same way we did.

Rebecca had a little bit of trash as we were getting ready to land and handed it to a flight attendant and asked in a polite way if she would take it for her.  The lady said, "Sure.  I'll just have to wash my hands for the thousandth time."  We don't think she was just trying to be funny.  The other workers were much more friendly.  I found a little more that I wanted to get rid of.  We planned on handing it to her when she went back to the front.  It turned into a bit of a dare.  She went back on the other side of the plane though, so we weren't able to.

A Japanese man next to us named Retsu was very excited that I had a Japanese shirt on and struck up a conversation with us.  He was very fun to speak with.  His English was limited, but good enough for us to talk quite a bit.  He had a fishing trip to Alaska and had a good time telling us about that.  We didn't understand everything, but knew he had a great time.

After getting though passport control and customs, we had quite a way to go to get on to the next flight.  We all made it in pretty good time except Rosie.  When we were checked in and heading to the gate, Rosie showed up at the back of the check in line.  We started heading to the gate, but when we got to security, Rebecca wanted to run back to try to get Rosie to the front of the line.  I didn't want to have her do that, so I went instead and was thinking about how I was more worried about getting us there on time.  Rebecca is so concerned about others though.  So, it was a good lesson for me.  When I got back, a worker asked if I needed help.  She went up to Rosie to help her move forwards quicker.  After we got through security, we waited until Rosie came and it all worked out.  The flight was a little delayed anyway and we all got on the flight without any trouble.  We both slept on the flight for most of it.

We enjoyed meeting out host family.  I had met them before, but did not know them at all well.  Michiaki and Toshiko Koishi are going to be great for us.  They speak about twice as much English as I do Japanese.  So, it's a bit hard to communicate, but we get by eventually with the help of Google Translate.  They showed us around the house.  It's a bit of a maze.  I'll probably get lost a lot getting from the kitchen the bedroom.  They labeled everything for us like, "Bath", "Toilet", and so on.  There is a small fridge next to our bedroom labelled "Please Freely".  They filled it with water bottles and juices.  They are very kind to us.  The toilet is one of the great Japanese ones.  It's amazing how good a heated seat feels.

We are very tired and are planning on sleeping well, then getting up tomorrow to go for a run and walk.

We usually wait at this dragon for a while until another flight of students comes in.  This time, the wait was small.  We hardly had time to get the photo done.

After meeting Michiaki