A NEW JOURNEY BEGINS

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

― Ernest Hemingway

Our arrival in America started with bang - literally!! A crazy storm with thunder, lightning and torrents of water welcomed us to Tampa!

On leaving Cape Town, we tried to keep goodbyes brief and said our sad farewells the night before we left. The next day we packed up our lives into 7 bags and left the flat that had been our home for the past week. Damon and Francois piled all our luggage into 2 cars as we rushed to the airport in good time - only to find that we were over an hour early for the boarding gate to open!!

Lyndee, Nicky and sad goodbyes on our last night in Cape Town

Sitting at the Wimpy waiting to leave was pretty surreal, a million thoughts and emotions going through our heads as we saw our BA Jumbo parked ahead. We eventually checked our bags in, packed to capacity with everything from kitchen gadgets, to diving equipment, to every type of electronic device and connection cord, to medicines for a year......and of course the Diemersfontein Pinotage!! To top it all, we had a huge PVC pipe filled with fishing rods.....just this rod cost us an extra R1500 in excess baggage, we'd better catch some BIG fish to make up for that!!

It was so sad saying goodbye to Damon but he has chosen to stay in CT until the end of the year. He is going to the Seychelles with Cass and her family in Sept and they will be joining us in Miami on 29 November....so looking forward to that!
After all the upheaval in the past weeks, I felt strangely unemotional as the 3 of us took off from Cape Town Airport. This was it!! All our preparation and planning for the last 5 years finally came together in that moment. We had a few bottles of wine, toasted our future and slept all the way to London.
We woke up to Stephen's 52nd birthday in London. We had a pretty tight connection and had to get from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3 and then Stephen was stopped at security. They found 'traces', of what we do not know. They unpacked all his hand luggage....not that I blame them, he had enough wires and electronics in there to build a bomb!

Our American Airlines flight to Miami

We hopped onto our American Airlines flight, a whole lot nicer than BA, and headed to Miami. After collecting our bags and 2m pvc pipe we realised we didn't have the correct change to pay for the trolleys so had to get a porter with one of those long trolleys. This dear old man with his little porters cap was our lifesaver. The queues at immigration and to file out of the baggage claim area were crazy and we got to the point when we realised we were not going to make our connection to Tampa. This old man was pushing through the people, the pipe falling off and wacking people is something I will never forget. Just when we thought we were through, they sent us to customs and immigration to have our baggage checked. All that we had not declared were our 3 bottles of Diemersfontein and my immediate thought was of us being deported for illegally importing wine, a testament of our dedication to this magnificent vintage.
All was good but our flight was leaving at 16h00 and it was 15h40 by the time we left customs. Our boarding gate was, of course, at the very end of the terminal and the 3 of us sprinted there, me in the lead due to a 'flat feet' problem with the rest of the pack. After arriving at the boarding gate 5 minutes before our flight was due to leave, like crazy people, sweating in the Miami heat.....we were told the flight was delayed and we only left an hour later.
Everything was so worth it when we arrived at Tampa Airport......there were Shaun, Shona and Tam with a huge neon welcome poster, Verde champagne and American flags with huge smiles and welcoming hugs! How blessed we are to have such wonderful friends, they will never know how much that moment meant to us.

The Dippy's arrive in the USA

Such a warm welcome and lots of laughs!

A crazy tropical storm welcomed us to Tampa

A special moment

We celebrated Stephen's 30 hour birthday with a 'barbeque' and cake and presents and got to Shona's lovely 'grandma's feather bed' at 4am SA time after 37 hours on the move.
America here we come........

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