Patagonia 2022!: Day of Departure Finally Arrives

Though we had returned from a tour of Romania just over a month before we were due to leave for South America, we had to plan our packing differently for this trip. We would be hitting multiple climates and have to pack warm and cold-weather gear, to include waterproof and insulated things. That, coupled with the length of the tour, made packing logistically challenging, but we took our time and planned ahead as best we could. We had the advantage of literally having three years to buy specific pieces of clothing we thought we might need, so we avoided last-minute scrambling to assemble the right gear.

The only pre-departure hiccup we encountered was a relatively last-minute need to shorten our trip by one day. Katherine learned of a work commitment scheduled for 1 November, which was the day on which we were originally supposed to return home. United Airlines -- with some polite prompting -- was accommodating and agreed to move us to the same flights a day earlier, and in the end, we only ended up missing the farewell dinner. Overall, it was certainly an acceptable sacrifice, and in no way took away from what was ultimately an amazing journey.

Our flight itinerary -- which changed more times than I can literally account over the years -- had us flying from Dulles to Houston, and then onward non-stop to Santiago, Chile. Our Washington-Houston leg ended up switching to a 1:00pm departure, with a long layover. We had no choice, other than to risk a later flight and a very tight connection, which -- if we missed that onward flight -- would have cost us a day or more of the trip, so the decision was an easy one to make.

I took the entire day of departure off, which allowed me to get Chip settled away at the kennel, while Katherine worked the morning and we linked up with the Rieckhoffs in the United Polaris lounge at Dulles. The flight to Houston was non-eventful, and we collectively enjoyed the long layover there. The lounge had a full restaurant, which allowed us to have a formal sit-down supper before boarding the 8:30pm flight to Santiago.