The Trip Home
Wednesday 3.26.08
We went to check-out with Sally and said, “we have to go home now Sally.” She said, “no you don’t.” So we stayed. Just kidding. We cleared everything out of the refrigerator and threw it into a bag for lunch or into a skillet for breakfast. We made our 10:00 AM check-out with a minute to spare and had several hours to kill before heading to the airport in Cairns for our flight to Sydney. We drove back up the mountain to Kuranda where Mary had some retail business to transact and John had a date with one of Annabelle’s pies. Steak and mushroom to be exact.
We ate our lunch at an overlook above Cairns with a final view of the city and ocean and gave it all a big kiss goodbye. We have to follow our trail of memory crumbs back to where we started. We have a late afternoon flight on Qantas to Sydney and the gate agent has suggested that we take two aisle seats across from each other since the plane is packed. As it turns out, the only two seats unsold on the plane are next to Mary so the two of us now share the three seats and our luck continues unabated. We get to our hotel, the Stamford Plaza that John had found for half-price, at about 9:00, grab a couple beers out of the mini-bar and get to bed.
Thursday 3.27.08
We get the late morning shuttle to the airport for our early afternoon flight on Air Pacific to Fiji. Mary hits the duty free shop for some last minute purchases, including some travel “medicine,” with the end of our Aussie dollars, while John makes a brunch out of the snack buffet in the business class lounge. It is a four hour afternoon flight on our 747 and with the time change it is early evening when we arrive in Nadi, Fiji.
Our luggage has been checked through to LA so we move through the “transit” gate to wait for our next flight. For some reason they do another security check and confiscate Mary’s travel “medicine” from her duty free bag. Mary, who has had several doses of “medicine” on the earlier flight, has an animated discussion with a woman who clearly enjoys her authority and is unwilling to discuss how sealed containers that just came off that plane right there pose a threat to the next plane that is right over there. John participates for a while and gives up while Mary takes the discussion as far as it will go without spending the night in a Fiji jail. It’s an ugly two hours waiting for our next flight.
This is an overnight 10-hour flight to Los Angeles and since we are crossing the date line we get a chance to have a do-over for Thursday. We are in the very back of the plane this time with four of the 450 people on board seated behind us. It is hot and cramped and they are serving a late night snack of fish-curry which creates the background aroma for the entire flight. As brother Joe says, the military should give up water-boarding and just put terrorists in the middle seat on one of these flight and they will spill all their secrets in the first fifty miles. We are very happy to see the California coast at about noon.
It takes about a half hour to clear customs and get our luggage through the baggage check. As we wheel all of our goods to the hotel pick-up area our Hilton bus pulls up as if it were waiting for us and we are at the hotel and in our room in just a couple minutes. A shower and a nap and all is right with the world once again. There is a sports bar in the hotel where we ate while watching the final college football game of the season at the beginning of the trip. Now we return to have a couple beers, cheeseburgers and watch sweet sixteen basketball on the big screen. It’s starting to feel like home.
Friday 3.28.08
We get the 8:30 shuttle back to the airport for our 10:30 flight to Chicago and then on to Minneapolis. Behind us when we are checking in is Eric Close who plays an FBI guy on “Without a Trace.” We have now had our LA star sighting. Breakfast is the burrito at Chili’s in the airport before boarding. Yesterday American had canceled hundreds of flights because they had been made aware of a problem with their MD-80 planes and had to pull them for inspections. When we heard that, we called and were assured that not only were the inspections finished, but we had a different aircraft for our flight. When we get to our gate there is our MD-80 waiting for us. At least it is ready to go.
It is an easy travel day today. With the two hour time change and an hour on the ground in Chicago we arrive in Minneapolis right on time at 6:55. Our luggage is the first down the chute and as we walk outside we find Brother Mike and Niece Sarah waiting right outside the door. Mike takes us to a little Italian restaurant where our bill for dinner with wine is a very pleasant surprise. An eight dollar dinner is a really nice concept. We stay up too late looking at pictures, telling stories and sipping even more wine.
Saturday 3.29.08
It is a real pot of coffee at Mike’s this morning. Yahoo!! Mary’s Dad is joining us for a late breakfast at Keys in White Bear Lake and some of us get way too much to eat once again. The diet starts Monday. The temp is in the forties already this morning so we are not in any pain.
Our last leg is the three hour ride back up north. Mike has the car all gassed up and shiny and we have a slightly sleepy but uneventful drive north. We get groceries and a pizza in Brainerd and are unpacking the car by 5:00. Our heat has been turned up, the house is warm, and there are two chocolate Easter eggs in a nest on our kitchen table. Either the Easter Bunny is being very kind to us or neighbors Denny and Marva have been reading these posts. Very nice! We get everything plugged in and turned on, have a cocktail, eat our pizza and wonder if we have actually been gone. We think so.
At some point in the next week we will do one more post with our overall impressions of the places we visited and things we have seen and done. For those of you who are actually still reading this, thank you. We have always intended to journal our trips but have always found something else to do with our time. Knowing that a few folks have had an interest in what we were up to has provided us with the incentive to keep this as up-to-date as possible. It will be fun for us now to look back and enjoy once again the adventures of this winter.
Wednesday 3.26.08
We went to check-out with Sally and said, “we have to go home now Sally.” She said, “no you don’t.” So we stayed. Just kidding. We cleared everything out of the refrigerator and threw it into a bag for lunch or into a skillet for breakfast. We made our 10:00 AM check-out with a minute to spare and had several hours to kill before heading to the airport in Cairns for our flight to Sydney. We drove back up the mountain to Kuranda where Mary had some retail business to transact and John had a date with one of Annabelle’s pies. Steak and mushroom to be exact.
We ate our lunch at an overlook above Cairns with a final view of the city and ocean and gave it all a big kiss goodbye. We have to follow our trail of memory crumbs back to where we started. We have a late afternoon flight on Qantas to Sydney and the gate agent has suggested that we take two aisle seats across from each other since the plane is packed. As it turns out, the only two seats unsold on the plane are next to Mary so the two of us now share the three seats and our luck continues unabated. We get to our hotel, the Stamford Plaza that John had found for half-price, at about 9:00, grab a couple beers out of the mini-bar and get to bed.
Thursday 3.27.08
We get the late morning shuttle to the airport for our early afternoon flight on Air Pacific to Fiji. Mary hits the duty free shop for some last minute purchases, including some travel “medicine,” with the end of our Aussie dollars, while John makes a brunch out of the snack buffet in the business class lounge. It is a four hour afternoon flight on our 747 and with the time change it is early evening when we arrive in Nadi, Fiji.
Our luggage has been checked through to LA so we move through the “transit” gate to wait for our next flight. For some reason they do another security check and confiscate Mary’s travel “medicine” from her duty free bag. Mary, who has had several doses of “medicine” on the earlier flight, has an animated discussion with a woman who clearly enjoys her authority and is unwilling to discuss how sealed containers that just came off that plane right there pose a threat to the next plane that is right over there. John participates for a while and gives up while Mary takes the discussion as far as it will go without spending the night in a Fiji jail. It’s an ugly two hours waiting for our next flight.
This is an overnight 10-hour flight to Los Angeles and since we are crossing the date line we get a chance to have a do-over for Thursday. We are in the very back of the plane this time with four of the 450 people on board seated behind us. It is hot and cramped and they are serving a late night snack of fish-curry which creates the background aroma for the entire flight. As brother Joe says, the military should give up water-boarding and just put terrorists in the middle seat on one of these flight and they will spill all their secrets in the first fifty miles. We are very happy to see the California coast at about noon.
It takes about a half hour to clear customs and get our luggage through the baggage check. As we wheel all of our goods to the hotel pick-up area our Hilton bus pulls up as if it were waiting for us and we are at the hotel and in our room in just a couple minutes. A shower and a nap and all is right with the world once again. There is a sports bar in the hotel where we ate while watching the final college football game of the season at the beginning of the trip. Now we return to have a couple beers, cheeseburgers and watch sweet sixteen basketball on the big screen. It’s starting to feel like home.
Friday 3.28.08
We get the 8:30 shuttle back to the airport for our 10:30 flight to Chicago and then on to Minneapolis. Behind us when we are checking in is Eric Close who plays an FBI guy on “Without a Trace.” We have now had our LA star sighting. Breakfast is the burrito at Chili’s in the airport before boarding. Yesterday American had canceled hundreds of flights because they had been made aware of a problem with their MD-80 planes and had to pull them for inspections. When we heard that, we called and were assured that not only were the inspections finished, but we had a different aircraft for our flight. When we get to our gate there is our MD-80 waiting for us. At least it is ready to go.
It is an easy travel day today. With the two hour time change and an hour on the ground in Chicago we arrive in Minneapolis right on time at 6:55. Our luggage is the first down the chute and as we walk outside we find Brother Mike and Niece Sarah waiting right outside the door. Mike takes us to a little Italian restaurant where our bill for dinner with wine is a very pleasant surprise. An eight dollar dinner is a really nice concept. We stay up too late looking at pictures, telling stories and sipping even more wine.
Saturday 3.29.08
It is a real pot of coffee at Mike’s this morning. Yahoo!! Mary’s Dad is joining us for a late breakfast at Keys in White Bear Lake and some of us get way too much to eat once again. The diet starts Monday. The temp is in the forties already this morning so we are not in any pain.
Our last leg is the three hour ride back up north. Mike has the car all gassed up and shiny and we have a slightly sleepy but uneventful drive north. We get groceries and a pizza in Brainerd and are unpacking the car by 5:00. Our heat has been turned up, the house is warm, and there are two chocolate Easter eggs in a nest on our kitchen table. Either the Easter Bunny is being very kind to us or neighbors Denny and Marva have been reading these posts. Very nice! We get everything plugged in and turned on, have a cocktail, eat our pizza and wonder if we have actually been gone. We think so.
At some point in the next week we will do one more post with our overall impressions of the places we visited and things we have seen and done. For those of you who are actually still reading this, thank you. We have always intended to journal our trips but have always found something else to do with our time. Knowing that a few folks have had an interest in what we were up to has provided us with the incentive to keep this as up-to-date as possible. It will be fun for us now to look back and enjoy once again the adventures of this winter.
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