Facing a long travel day, we got started bright and early, with my mom finishing the last-minute packing, and my caregiver Lizzy getting me flight-ready! After getting up and dressed, Edwin and I headed for Sea-Tac airport to meet up with my other half, Celina, eager to start the trip! It turned out to be a day full of things breaking all around us, but maybe we were just getting the bad luck out of the way before we began.

It started when we hitched a ride from the parking lot to the airport; the shuttle lift was not working. Luckily, Celina has first-hand experience in this area and was able to show the driver how to manually deploy it. Upon arriving at the airport, we hopped into a long line to check our bags, only to discover that the baggage belt had broken with no estimated time of repair. We were given the choice between waiting with our bags and being put on a much later flight, or getting on our plane with no guarantee the bags would meet us on the other end. With a little sweet-talking, we were able to take all 5 giant pieces of luggage (plus our carry-on items) through security and gate-check them. Phew! The flight was smooth, and we hoped the wheelchair handling by Alaska Airlines would be as well.

After one of the easier flights I’ve been on, when we disembarked the plane, the transfer team delivered the news that the freight elevator was down and they had to push my 400+ pound wheelchair from the plane all the way to the baggage carousel! Luckily, we were kept entertained by a variety of airport employees who eventually got me out of that tiny aisle chair and back into my own safely.

While we had our own adventures going on, Jimmy and Dr. B had arrived early to St. Louis and been able to pick up our ramp van, scoop up a sweet new bike for Jimmy, and even decorate our Airbnb with some festive black and white checkered decor. They also picked up some much-needed travel items that we had shipped to a friend here in town (shout out to Andrew for letting us have packages delivered to his place)! They then picked us up with all our gear, and we made it to the house where were greeted at sundown by rabbits and lightning bugs in the backyard.

After finally getting some rest, we gathered ourselves together to take a little field trip across state lines to pick up a Geocache in Illinois. We then had the unique opportunity to ride my wheelchair across Ol’ Muddy (aka the Mississippi River) to visit the Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis. Our first day was complete with some local barbecue and beers, after which we headed back to our Airbnb to get ready to start our first day on the trail!

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