AND I WOULD FLY FOUR THOUSAND MILES
I got up around 7 this morning to finish packing everything up to be out by our 10 o’clock checkout. We cleaned up most of the leftover food, including a couple sandwiches for our flight back. Julie called bell services, but we ended up having to send down one or two people at a time after people kept riding the elevator up just to go back down. We said our goodbyes in front of the elevator, and then Summer and I ran into our bellhop on the way down.
We checked our bags in, and then wandered the strip for the few hours we had before our flight. Between a pushy saleswoman with a fire-sale strategy and someone else selling hairy oysters, Summer settled on slicing up food for pearls. We let ourselves get talked into two pieces of jewelry and a third pearl just to take home.
Our last meal on the island was a Japanese place on the resort, which was pretty decent for counter service. Once we had eaten and wrapped up the last of our souvenir shopping, we went to the lobby to wait for Susan. She picked us up a bit earlier than the 5 o’clock we had initially planned, but we felt better with the extra buffer time at the airport. As we got out, she handed us a big bag of goodies as a thank-you gift for our egregious tipping. I gave her a big hug and then figured out a way to re-pack everything to fit into our bags.
The flight back on the 767 was absolutely awesome with the added space and the built-in display in the back of the headrests. We just barely missed the sunset while we were sitting on the tarmac. I watched a couple of movies while we were over the ocean until I caught the sunrise at 37,000 feet. I dozed off a bit a few times, but it didn’t seem too bad. Even Summer stayed up for most of the first flight.
Our second flight was delayed in Houston for about an hour because they had to replace a part. I don’t know if they were being truthful about it being a part for the lavatory, but the flight back was fine. We made up a bunch of time and were only a little late touching down. By then we were pretty hungry and drove across town to Chuy’s for lunch/breakfast/midnight meal.
Loaded up on caffeine, we made it home and dropped Susan’s gift bag for my parents and then picked up Eaddie at her grandparents’ house. As soon as we got to my house, Eaddie took off on her bicycle and Summer passed out in bed. I unpacked and then stayed up watching House with Eaddie on account of how much she missed me, clocking out after roughly 38 waking hours.
ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHA!