The journey begins. And a birthday.

Jonnie turned thirty on Thursday. 

Here he is, in all his glory.

About all that gear he's rocking?

Don't ask! The child is incorrigible.

He got a bag of Lindor truffles, some cash, a kiss, and a cake from his Mom.

Buttermilk cake with whipped cream mousse frosting.

Drool if you want.

If I didn't know better, I would say he loves his Squeaker more than anything else in the world.

On second thoughts, maybe I don't know better.

As for me and Dear Dolly, we're on our way.

With all our eleven-plus bags

And here we sit in Terminal 4 at Fort Lauderdale Airport, waiting for our early-morning check-in.

A not-very-helpful Haitian porter transported our bags about twenty yards to the shuttle, for which he earned a very handsome (in retrospect) tip.

When we got to Terminal 4 and were off-loaded (with no ceremony) by the Haitian driver (You're killing me, he said) we sat on a bench by the curb in the balmy night air, collecting ourselves and planning a strategy for the night. Our check-in tomorrow is at 3:30am, so we needed to find a place to hang out. We were feeling thrifty after the porter thing, so decided to hunt down some abandoned carts.

Did you know that airport carts cost $4 each nowadays?

Daylight robbery!

After having no luck taking turns wandering the parking lot, we stalked a couple of people with carts and nabbed them (the carts) as soon as they were alone.

Score for us!

If you haven't seen middle-aged women celebrating free luggage carts at the airport, you haven't seen jubilation.
Trust me on that.