Our Trip Home

We were to be picked up at 7:00 Thursday morning (midnight back home) to be taken to the airport.  We were expecting a 16 person bus but two 8 person vans came instead.  We transferred with no issues and then the lines began.  First up was trying to find the Delta counter.  We had to ask at Information.  It was at 390 so we followed signs but before we could enter that area we had to produce a reservation or boarding pass.  Since I could not print, luckily I had them sent to my phone.  Once I produced these, we were allowed to proceed.  Once again, before reaching the counter, we were stopped to answer a few questions and a sticker was placed on the back of our passports.  Finally we made it to the counter.  We checked 3 of our 4 bags, received our boarding passes and proceeded to our gate to learn we had a delay.  That concerned us because we had less than two hours to disembark, go through immigration, claim our luggage, recheck our luggage and go through Securty again in Atlanta!

We took off late but made up the time and it's a good thing.  First up was Immigration with 7 switchback rows of people.  The 24 automated machines which were all empty are only for people not continuing on from Atlanta.  Figure that one out!  It took an hour to get through this.  Then we had to claim our luggage and take it to a new belt to be put on our next flight then proceed to Security.  We were stopped in Houston because of our dimes used to play cards so this time we put them in the small dish and they were pulled for inspection ... behind two bags, one of which contained small jars of jam and little bottles of limoncello.   It took two ladies FOREVER to look at each one.  The problem was they didn't know how many grams or milliliters are in 3 ounces!  The second bag didn't take as long.  When ours came up my little purse was opened and dumped out.  Then they went through all the dimes.  Of course then she had to gather them all up and put them back in.  They did the same to Ted's.  Finally they opened his credit card case and leafed through everything in there.  Only then could we proceed to our gate.  Luckily we didn't have to ride the train to another terminal.  We found our gate, the rest of our group and another delay.

Carol was to pick us up at 9:30 pm because Terry was due in on an 11:00 flight.  We texted her and him telling them she should not come because we would arrive about the same time and would come home with him.  We landed about 5 minutes apart and it worked out great!  We arrived home at midnight, 24 hours of travel!

We went right to bed and it helped turn us around by getting a long night's sleep right away.  

I have kept my calendar clear for the most part so I probably won't have much to say after all these postings!