AND SO WE BEGIN (28 December 2008):

After spending a beautiful Christmas with family in Fredericksburg, we arrived at the Mayflower in Washington, D.C. a day early so that we could see Washington friends before starting the various kickoff events with our 80 or so new traveling companions on our National Geographic AROUND THE WORLD tour. Before the tour festivities started, we took a short walk down to 1600 Pennsylvania and saw lots of people watching the construction of several inaugural grandstands right in front of the White House. (The White House is out of the picture, to the right.)

That evening our National Geographic tour began in earnest with a lecture at Nat Geo's headquarters followed by dinner. Carol, whose birthday is today, was honored with song and a cake. She was mortified but took it in good spirits. (CC aside: At least they had the good sense NOT to mention the birthday number!)

The next day, before dawn, we gathered for breakfast. But even before that, our luggage had to be placed outside our doors by 5:30 a.m. This included both our "regular" bag and a bright blue micro-mini wheeled bag that was issued to everyone. In what could only be called torture-by-the-tiny, we had to pack in the small issued bag everything we'd need for three days in Peru. Why? We had three days in Peru at three different sites: Lima, Cusco and then Machu Picchu. Hauling along all the luggage for everyone would have been a nightmare for the Nat Geo baggage organization folk (one of whom is traveling with us; the rest are locals at our destination. She's in charge of organizing and checking in all baggage. We gratefully part company with said bags at our hotel door and next see the bags at our next hotel door.)

So, after we identified our bags we were "tri-vided," sorted into three groups for staggered departures to Dulles. (And here was our 1st first- -neither of us remember ever going to Dulles by bus before.) So, onto the buses we piled for the trip to our private 757 jet - our home away from home for the next three weeks.