It is Sunday night September 1st and we are in the final throes of gathering everything that is going with us and frantically checking off items on the "take to France" list and winding down the tasks before we leave the Daisy Lane house for six weeks.
Getting the bikes securely into the boxes is "job one" - since bikes damaged in transit makes for a very short biking vacation. Loading our baggage into the Durango for the drive to DIA gets easier every year as we take less each trip. We got an early start figuring the Labor Day traffic out of the mountains would be unusually heavy, and we were right until we were past the tunnel then smooth sailing (aka driving) all the way to the United drop off.
Kim wrangled all the luggage to the check-in counter while I drove to Park DIA to park the car and shuttle back to the terminal.
By the time I arrived all the bags were checked with boarding passes in hand. The baggage handler (on left) and United counter representative (on right) re-taped the boxes with the extra strong tape which was taped again by TSA when they inspected the contents and left a "we were here" note.
After a few hours lounging in the lounge it was time to board the flight to Frankfurt (a short nine hours), with plenty of flight time to consume some bubbly and watch "Top Fun: Maverick" again. Sleep came quickly.
In any case everything arrived in Frankfurt and then Toulouse as planned. We tracked each piece (two bike boxes and two suit cares) with Air Tags every step of the way. Happiness is seeing your first bag come off the luggage belt and "ultra happiness" is seeing two bikes slide down the oversized ramp in one piece with no fork lift holes punched through the middle.
With all our bags gathered it was a short walk to the hotel pick up point for our rental car then two hour drive to Castelnaud, our first location in the Dordogne. Flying into Toulouse is such a convenience over CDG airport in Paris and very long drive to the south west of France.
After a short stop at a local market we cobbled together a simple dinner and obligatory first baguette and pastries.
A chocolate mousse and meringue creation for me and fruity tarte for Kim. Long flight, long day, and great reward in preparation for a good night's sleep.
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