Planning for the BIG trip

We have been researching for over two months for this trip. We first decided, late last year, that we wanted to go visit our son and his family when we found out he was staying in Melbourne, Australia for a while longer. First of all was the expense, of course. We started looking into ways to travel. We thought about going by freighter. That seemed like a good way until I found out how long it took. Sometimes it takes over 20 days. We didn't want to spend that much time getting there. Then of course was commercial flights which were very expensive. Then we thought about catching a Military Space-A flight. The more I looked into, I realized that it was possible. Sometimes it works out and other times it doesn't work out. We decided to drive to our son's house who lives in Illinois. He wanted to try to go also since he is retired Air Force. We read posts by other space-A travelers who had learned the ropes and passed on their wisdom. We found out about a flight leaving Scott soon going to Travis, spends the night and leaves the next day for Hickam where it spends the night. The next day it flies to Guam, spends the night then arrives in Australia. We plan to leave Montgomery AL on Thursday to drive to Illinois to try to catch it. We just hope it takes passengers.