Today I was able to straighten out the cancelled flight to Philadelphia, the first leg of our trip to Madrid. It took about a week of phone calls to ExploreTrip in India, speaking with Maverick, Amberlyn, Rockne, and Davio, to get a replacement flight that did not destroy the connections at the Madrid end.
Tomorrow we will practice packing to make sure we can fit all desired equipment into our large backpack plus the daypack carryon.
We bought IKEA Frakt bags yesterday at the exorbitant cost of $3.99 each to enfold and secure our backpacks on the flights.