The day to leave the fascist state finally arrives.

I had my visa and my airline tickets, but I still had a lot to do.  First, I could only take two suitcases with me which meant I had to get rid of all of my remaining possessions.  Many of my small things like kitchen utensils, stereo and records (yes, vinyl records), I gave to John Potts' handyman.  That is the same person who was always walking around with a shotgun threatening to shot me.  But he didn't know any better and was so poor that he and his family could use any help they could get.  The larger items I just left in the apartment for John Potts.

I tried to sell my car in the local paper, but the response was poor and I didn't have a lot of time to waste so I finally went to a local car dealer who bought it for about a third of its actual value.  With the sale of my car, I needed to rent a car for my last couple of days in Rolla and for the drive to the St. Louis airport.  Unfortunately, none of the rental agencies would rent a car and allow me to drop it off at the airport.  Probably there wasn't a big demand for cars going to Rolla and therefore all rental agencies required that I return the car to Rolla.

When the day of my flight to Mexico finally arrived, I drove to the St. Louis airport, parked the car and dropped the keys in an envelope and mailed them along with the car's location to the Rolla rental agency.  I figured there was nothing they could do except bill my credit card for their recovery cost and since I was not planning on coming back to amerika, I really didn't care what they did.  It didn't seem likely that the rental company would find me in Cuba and pursue trying to collect the cost of recovering their car.  I dropped the envelope in an airport drop box and proceeded to my scheduled air flight.

Since this was pre-9/11, I had no problems with my luggage nor with boarding my flight.  Once on board the plane, I sat back in my seat, relaxed and then began my first leg of my flight to Havana via Mexico City.  Several hours later, we landed in Mexico City without incident.  I took a cab to the nearest hotel I could find to spend the night and prepare for my next day flight to Havana.