The Final Journey

Okay, I know I'm a few days behind but I'm going to recount our "adventure" home before I go back and catch up with our touring. Imagine starting off by getting up at 4:00am in a time zone 18 hours ahead of EST, i.e., in Christchurch, New Zealand. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 7:00 and it did. So far, so good. The first flight--to Sydney--was uneventful. We would soon agree that uneventful was a good thing. Our first little incident was the confiscation of Nancy's little yarn snips, dull little yarn snips that had made it through five inspections to this point, including that which occurred the first time we passed through Sydney. But this inspector was quite proud of the fact that he caught what others had missed, even suggesting that American inspectors were lax. We couldn't resist letting him know that we had already gone through Sydney a month ago. In any event, this incident would be the only excitement during our seven hour layover in Sydney. After that we boarded the plane for our 13 hour plus flight to Los Angeles. This leg of the trip was grueling. Seated in the center seats, we were reluctant to get up too often because we would have to disturb the person on the aisle each time. Then add to it a crying, screaming two year old (I learned that she was two later on when the mother told another woman that Stella was "in her terrible twos.") seated right behind us. On our trip from LA to Sydney on Virgin Australia we received masks and ear plugs and managed a reasonable amount of sleep on the way. Not so on this trip with United. Stella managed to keep us up most the night--along with the movie flashing on the video screens overhead. We were soooo glad to get off that plane, only to encounter a fiasco getting through customs. We had figured that with a layover of over three hours, we would have plenty of time. But after picking up our baggage and checking it for the remaining two flights, we had to back track to get in the queue [Australians do not use the term "line" for this sort of thing] that stretched farther than the eye could see. After some time a woman came through announcing that anyone needing to catch a flight scheduled to leave at 12:45 or sooner could enter an expedited lane. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 1:00, would you believe, so we couldn't use that line. By the time we got through customs, it was just enough time to board our next flight. By this time we had been traveling for 26 hears. But wait! Guess who was to climb into the seats in front of us. That's right, Stella and her loving mother. I say "loving" because she was not adverse to telling everyone who was willing to listen how bratty Stella was. We also heard her slap the toddler several times. She was not a candidate for mother of the year. I felt sorry for the unfortunate young Asian man who had to sit with them for the five hour flight to Washington. I said to Nancy that he was likely to run out as soon as possible to buy a truckload of condoms. It goes without saying that we did not get much peace and quiet on this jaunt either. We were concerned about our last connection because we had a little over an hour between flights and this one was running a bit late. The flight attendant was clueless and had little to offer in the way of suggestions for assuring that we made our connection. A couple behind us, however, had overheard us ask about it and looked up the gate number using their smartphone. They were also familiar with Dulles and gave us some pointers. We made it to the gate on time, only to learn that the flight was delayed, first 15 minutes, then 30, then indefinitely before being finally canceled altogether. Apparently there was a small faulty part affecting the outside lighting and that part was nowhere to be found. By this time it was midnight and we were now 31 hours into out journey. Everyone was rushing to the service counter to stand in a line [we're in the States now] to arrange new flights and hotel accommodations. Unfortunately we were served by a young man who must have been new at the job. He kept having to ask others about what to do. After some time we found ourselves in a taxi taking the half hour trip to the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City, Virginia, a hotel right next to Reagan National Airport. Arriving at 1:00am, we had to ask for a wake up call for 5:00am so that we could catch our 7:30 Delta flight to Detroit. Yes, our fourth flight back home had just become two flights. Again, with the flight getting off a little late we were concerned about our connection. This time, however, the Delta flight assistant was very helpful and suggested we could use our Kindle Fire to find which gate we would fly in and out of. Since this would be the third time we had been to the airport in Detroit, we had some idea of what we were up against. We also found out that the last flight was also running a bit late, so we had no problem getting there on time. Detroit must have some special magic involving coincidence, because, just as we had encountered Mary Wagner on our way to Australia, we ran into Laurie Holdridge and Darrell Murray on their way home from Florida, waiting for the same flight we would end up taking home. Meisha and Dave surprised us by meeting us at the airport in Binghamton so we wouldn't have to drive home ourselves. It was so good to see them, along with Everett, of course, and after 43 and a half hours ,we were finally home. I took a picture of Nancy waiting for our last flight but it was too blurring, so you'll have to be happy with this shot out the window of our last plane home.