The Journey Is Half the Fun?

We must have been more ready to get home than we thought, because we all woke up before my phone alarm went off at 8:30. Actually, Dear said he woke up at 6:15 with that song on his mind that goes “five-hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes…” and he laid there doing the math to make sure that’s really how many minutes there are in a year. After ciphering for a while, he concluded that it is.

Anyway, after the 8:30 phone alarm, we snoozed until someone did the tap-ta-ta-tap-tap thing on our door. Hmmm, we have no friends here and we still had the “Do Not Disturb” sign out, so who could it be?

Since the boyz were in their sleeping skivvies, I got up and looked out the peephole. There was a sturdy-looking tall bald man standing there, so I said (in gravelly morning voice), “Who is it?” and he said, “Da#&, I’ve got the wrong room again, sorry!” The same guy had knocked on our door last night and looked surprised when #3 opened the door. He’d REALLY have gotten a shock had I actually opened the door! LOLOL Good thing we were already awake when he knocked this morning, or we would have been much less forgiving.

At 9:00 Dear did his shower thing while I checked email and verified our flight departure info. Then it was my turn to clean up while Dear found the actual song (525,600 minutes) on iTunes so he could get it out of his head. Great song, by the way.

We’d packed most everything the night before just to make sure we had room for all of our original stuff PLUS the souvenir stuff we’ve bought in the last 2 weeks. All we had left to pack in the morning were our routine toiletries, PJ’s and slippers (mine), and find a place for the few dirty clothes from the morning cleanup. #3 showered and we were ready to check out about 10:45.

We hadn’t finished up some of the food items we’d bought the other night. Dear poured the rest of the milk down the sink, but we just left the brownies and 2 doughnuts. Maybe the housekeeper had a little snack as she cleaned our room.

Checkout was smooth – the printer was “miraculously” working – and we were on our way. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 2:40, so we figured we’d get to the airport about 12:30 to return the rental and get through all the security. But since it wasn’t 11 yet, we looked for a place to have lunch before going to the airport.

My boyz graciously agreed to one last Malibu Chicken lunch at the Sizzler just for me. Aren’t they thoughtful? It was wonderful.

We filled up the rental with gas for the return to Enterprise and Maggs got us to the Oakland International Airport in record time. The air around Oakland was really hazy, but I had read online this morning that the fires were building up again because of the hot, dry weather. I’m glad we did the SF tour when the smoke had blown out of the area for that short time.

We pulled into the rental car return at 12:30 on the dot. Enterprise man checked us in, told us we’d driven 2,511 miles (WOW), and gave me the receipt for the charges. It was less than what Gloria (San Jose Enterprise Clerk) had quoted – even with the extra drop-off and driving-into-a-non-bordering-state charges. Take that, Glo! There is justice, albeit *hooters* couldn’t think of the word I wanted. Oh, anti-climactic. That’s the word I wanted. Ignore the *hooters.*

Quick shuttle ride to the Oakland terminal, check the bags (no charge for 5 bags because we booked before the baggage surcharge requirement), endure the tedious security check, get dressed again, and made it to Gate 8A by 12:50.
Yep. We had a hurry-up-and-wait experience, but at least we didn’t miss the flight. My mother would be proud. She’s big on the hurry-up-and-wait philosophy of life.

We were scheduled to arrive in BigD at 8:15 p.m. and #1 was supposed to bring Dear’s van to pick us up at the airport. I sent him a message the night before with the flight info and again in the morning with our arrival gate A15. #2&K were on stand-by just in case. We like to have a backup plan for insurance.

We sat in the gate waiting area for a while and then #3 and I went browsing at one of the little souvenir/snack stores on the concourse. They had a deal on OAKLAND shirts, so we got one for him and one for the guy who house-sat for us. We also bought some of those little solar-powered keychains for friends and a couple of sodas. That killed about 15 minutes and it wasn’t too long after we got back to the waiting area that they started boarding the flight for home.

We kept ourselves occupied on the flight with various activities. Dear read the SkyMall magazine, I worked the crossword puzzle in the American Way magazine, and #3 listened to music on his iPod. When we started out, the pilot told us that the weather in BigD was sunny, temp of 97 with a few clouds, and that we’d be arriving about 15 minutes early. Must have had a good westerly tail wind.

Looong flight: 3 hours and 25 minutes. The skies were clear and we could see the terrain down below. FYI, Monument Valley, UT, is still impressive from 38,000 feet. #3 was sitting by the window, but I leaned to see things every once in a while.

AA (that’s American Airlines, not Alcoholics Anonymous) still serves free soft beverages and bottled water, but doesn’t give out free food anymore. Not even those little bags of honey-coated nuts or Chex mix. About halfway through the flight, our Malibu chicken lunch was a distant memory and our tumblies were grumbling. We figured we’d eat at Abuelo’s in Arlington after #1 picked us up from the airport. Yummy!

At 7:45, the pilot told us that we were flying over Wichita Falls (we knew he was talking about TX, but the people in front of us thought he meant Kansas. Hello? 7th grade Geography?) and that they had just gotten the report that there was “weather” at DFW and the airport was closed to incoming flights. At that point, he was thinking we’d be rerouted to Oklahoma City to refuel and wait out the DFW storm. Hmmm.

Many things ran through my mind, not the least of which was how to get this info to #1, who had already left our house to make the trip to the airport to pick us up and doesn’t have a cell phone. Hmmm. Oh well, there was nothing I could do at 38,000 feet and #1 is savvy enough to check the website and/or the Arr/Dep screens at the airport to get the latest info.

We did land at 8:00. It was just that we were in OkC instead of BigD. Pilot said that we’d refuel, deplane the 3 lucky passengers who were headed for OkC anyway and just got there 2 hours early, get a new flight plan, and wait for DFW to open up to incomings. It’s the first time in my many years of flying experience that people weren’t up out of their seats the nanosecond the plane stopped on the tarmac. Everyone just sat there talking quietly and waiting for the next update.

9:00. Pilot said we’d been refueled, the 3 OkC passengers were off (lucky them), we had the new flight plan, and DFW was still closed. But it looked like the weather cell was moving quickly (obviously he’s not from TX because he seemed surprised at fast-moving weather) and we were going to get in line to take off.

9:35. Pilot explained why we’d been sitting on the runway for so long. There were at least 60 rerouted flights coming into OkC and we had to wait for a takeoff spot between the incomings. We finally started rolling a couple of minutes later and were in the air by 9:40. Pilot said it was only a 25-minute flight to DFW.

10:26. The 25-minute flight (uh, more like 46) landed at DFW. We were anticipating a turbulent ride and #3 had his knuckles all set for whiteness, but it was a smooth flight. We saw the lights of BigD long before we landed and figured that those fast-moving clouds were off in Arkansas somewhere by then.

10:40. Taxied to Gate C10 (remember I had told #1 we’d be arriving at A16 – oops) and people popped up to deplane. Flight Attendant told us that there would be gate clerks to direct people to connecting flights (yeah, right) and that our luggage would be at Baggage Claim C4. Situation back to normal.

11:00. Not so much. We were still waiting to get off the plane. No one had moved. We were still sitting down (experience has told us that it’s easier just to wait than to join in the deplaning rush). Pilot told us that the gate folks were having trouble getting the SkyBridge rolling walkway thingie to work so we could get off the plane, but the mechanics were working on it and we’d be on our way very soon.

11:15. Yeah, we’re still sitting. Pilot said that the SkyBridge rolling walkway thingie was still not working and everyone needed to do an about-face because we’d be walking down the aft stairs, around the wing, and up the back SkyBridge stairs into the gate area. Understand that our seats were in Row 26, so we were very close to the back of the plane. Now, suddenly, we’re at the FRONT of the line! Sweet.

I’ve never been pooped out of a plane before, but obviously there’s a first time for everything. Talk about dropping off the kids!

11:25. We made it down the back, um, aft steps, around the wing, up the baby steps into the SkyBridge NON-rolling walkway thingie and finally into the waiting area at Gate C10. I noticed that there were large signs above the corridor that told us our luggage would be at Baggage Claim C12, but didn’t the Flight Attendant just tell us it would be at C4? Hmmm.

We followed the crowd to Baggage Claim C12, where VOILA!!! there was #1 waiting for us! Hugs all around – we’re HOME!! #1 said he was glad to see us but that he had some bad news and my heart did a flip-flop expecting … I don’t know what I expected to hear.

He’d locked the keys in the car. And it was parked in a one-hour tow-away spot. And the fuel light had come on a few miles back. And our baggage was at C12.
Fitting ending to an interesting day, wouldn’t you say?

Long story short (did I just hear a sigh of relief??), we walked to C12 and retrieved our luggage. I called #2 and he went by our house to get the extra set of keys and then drove to the airport to bring them to us. He got there about 12:30. After the hugs all around with him and the locked-inside key retrieval, we loaded everything up and he followed us to the nearest gas station just to make sure we got there. With the adventure we’d just experienced, we weren’t taking any chances on running out of gas with no backup plan!

We stopped to eat taquitos at What and eventually pulled into our driveway at 2 a.m. We unloaded the car, talked for a little while and my head hit the pillow at 3:30 – which was really only 1:30 to us because we were still functioning on CA time.

It’s been a fun 2 weeks. Thanks for reading along and sharing our adventures. The last set of pictures will bring the total to somewhere around 525. Lots of memories and gorgeous scenery.

Hey, it’s good to be back home again.

ttfn

p.s. Oh, did I mention that the air conditioner on the bedroom side of the house wasn’t working when we got home?