long road home

We are home safe and sound, with a mountain of laundry and a pile of cold medicine empty packets.

We had to leave our room at 8am on the ship and didn’t get home until 12:30am… a long, long day so yesterday was a never ending day of waiting. Waiting to get off the ship; waiting on the bus for late people; waiting for the little tour boat to get going; waiting on the bus for late people (the same two people); waiting again for the same two people; waiting at the airport for check-in time; waiting at our gate; flying (in other words, waiting to get home); and then driving home in the dark and stormy night. How is it that we have had such bad luck with travel days.

To reduce some of the time at the airport we took a boat tour of Florida’s many canals. We saw countless houses that cost $20, $30, and $40 million dollars, as well as huge boats worth almost as much. It was fun to see how the other half lives.

One thing I didn’t mention is while we were at the airport I took a walk around to stretch my legs. “Laura”... I turned around and it only took a few seconds to recognize Guy! We used to hang around with Guy and Stacey years ago in my horsey times, but we haven’t really seen them for years, so it was a great pleasure to reconnect with them. It certainly made some of the waiting more pleasant :-)

Our last sea day on the boat was anticlimactic… a long sleep in for me, Carm brought me breakfast in the room, packing, a bit of toddling around the boat, a visit to Crinela for one more thing, trivia for Carm, music for me. We sort of participated (on the edge) in a group renewal of vows thing and danced one more slow dance. We had a final supper with Terri and Ron. I had one last Creme Brulee. Instead of the Beatlemaniacs show we enjoyed some piano playing. I wasn’t feeling 100% so we went to our room early and watched a mindless movie (I Feel Pretty). I took some (more) cold medication.

The dogs were not ecstatic to see us, in fact they didn’t even greet us at the door. I had to go to where they were sleeping to see them. Spike finally came out, but acted all weird and unsure. It has taken till late this afternoon for him to start acting like himself. Grace was happy for a scratch.

Pat set the scene for a nice welcome home with a pot of flowers and a clean house. What a treat! And she’s a treasure. All three of us babbled late into the night over a glass of wine to settle our travel frayed nerves.