Wednesday the 25th of May was our long travel day home. We needed to get up early, pack, eat and get on our way by around 7 am or so. Our hotel doesn't have breakfast (boo), but Burger King was right next door. Very convenient. We like BK breakfasts. So we did that quickly, then grabbed our bags, checked out and headed down the street ( just 1.5 blocks) to the Metro station. Jonathan pointed out that we'd need to cross the street to the OTHER entrance to use an escalator to get down to the platform. There were only stairs going down on our side of the street; stairs and escalators on the opposite. We feel quite adept at using the subway system here, and sometimes even buses! We knew where we were going (Reagan airport) , we had money on our cards with only a little bit to spare, so it was okay.
When we got there, we should have just followed the crowd, but we took an elevator DOWN and ended up way far away, but asked for directions, found a shuttle, go to where we needed to be in a very round-about way and walked straight to the security and gates. Easy. The next part? not so much.
We flew Southwest and boarding is really different. It's open seating, but we actually managed to find three seats together near the back.
Our first stop was New Orleans. It was NOT the flight I originally bought. Both the flights I originally purchases were non-stop in and out of Salt Lake City. But they changed it. Twice. Then I changed it again and luckily they did not charge me. When we got to New Orleans, our gate was really close and that was good. Only our gate said it was going to Las Vegas, NOT Salt Lake City. Turns out they added yet anohter stop to our flight and it wasn't mentioned anywhere in my correspondence with them. Crazy. Plus, the weather was bad ( Pouring rain), so the plain circled a while waiting for a break in the weather making us late for our landing. We had to change planes and didn't have much time at all. The outgoing flight to Vegas/SLC was only 2 minutes delayed and we had less than 10 minutes with which to de-plane, go potty, and get back in line to board. Yikes. So we did our bathroom business in shifts and both Mike and I grabbed some snacky food for the plane ride since there was no time for lunch.
In Las Vegas, we didn't have to get off the plane. Their preparing is rather minimal. No cleaning, just flight attendants going down the rows brushing crumbs off the seats to the floor and making sure the armrests are down and seatbelts are on the seats. That's it. I suppose they deep clean sometimes, but not for the 6 of us remaining aboard, or for the 200 who boarded the flight to Salt Lake City.
With our delays and extra stop, instead of getting in to Salt Lake at 6:40 pm, we didn't get there until after 8 pm. Grrr. Both Gail and Jonathan AND Mike and I had to still drive another 3 1/2 to 4 hours to our homes.
Gail picked us all up at the airport and took us to Kaylee and Nick's house. All the kids were up except Emily, so we got to say hi and goodnight to them, eat some yummy Lasagna and salad and rolls, then hop in our cars and drive home.
I'm glad Mike is perked up by caffeinated drinks. I'm NOT, apparently. I mostly stayed awake for the first hour or so, but then conked out. Mike drove the whole way home and I dropped into bed at 1 am.
Robert and Donna are both staying at our house, tending to our Mom and Dad. Dad was put on Hospice just before we left on our trip to DC and there were a lot of changes for Mom and Dad, and a marked decline to Dad's health, so I'm really glad they came. Janet has been down here, too, but went back to work during the week.
No airport photos of our travels, no photos of the quick dinner at Nick and Kaylee's house. No photos of our late night drive home. I will say it took me until Saturday to finally unpack my suitcase.
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