The End of the Trip - Day #15 January 28, 2019

All good things come to an end, don't they?  We wouldn't appreciate vacations if we didn't have to come home once in a while, right?  Why am I typing all of these questions?  Who knows?

Anyway....Monday (yesterday) was the day we flew home.

We packed up everything Sunday evening, loaded most of the suitcases into the car, went for dinner at a Brewhouse I wanted to try, and went to bed early, like 8:00 p.m.  The alarm on my phone was set for 2, the one on the clock by the bed for 2:10.  I later changed the phone alarm to 2:15.  I mean, it sounded good to get an extra 15 minutes of sleep, even though I wasn't sleeping at all!

I went to sleep well, but I was awake before midnight--and I mean WIDE awake.  Gary was sleeping, so at least one of us was getting some rest.  I tossed and turned, checked FB, maybe dozed off and on (more awake than anything else) and finally just waited for the alarm to go off.

It was a good thing I hadn't needed to rely on the clock alarm because that thing was pathetic.  I barely heard a little beep...beep...beep...beep before I shut it off.  Then when the phone alarm jarred the silence in the room, I knew it was time to hop out of bed and into the shower.  After showers, dressing, eating a cookie, carefully packing the rest of the items into the two remaining suitcases, we double checked the rooms again and walked out, leaving the keys on the dining room table.

The resort was very quiet at 3:30 in the morning. Plus there was very little traffic.  It was no trouble, no wait to pull out onto Palm Parkway.  We didn't encounter much traffic until we were driving east to the airport and even that was minimal.

Returning the rental car was easy enough. An old guy was lining up returned cars and said the guy would be checking them in later and would send us a receipt in our email (still haven't seen it!).

Next we went into the ticket counters and found that there were lots of people, the kiosks for baggage tags were not working yet, and there were no customer service people behind the counters. It was 4:00.  

Finally a guy came in from the outside check-in and offered to check out bags for us.  He also said he worked for tips which we think was a ruse but we did tip him.  He printed us new boarding passes also.

We were pre-TSA so we didn't have to stand in line and go through the extensive screening.  That was the quickest we have ever gone through the process. Once again my knee set off the sensors.

After we rode on the monorail to the terminal, we stopped at Mc Donalds for a sausage McMuffin, hash browns, and a diet coke.  We had to wait for about an hour to board the plane.  Gary upgraded us so we could have seats closer to the front and could get off the plane more quickly because at that time we didn't know the distance between the gates of where we landing in Atlanta and where we would have to board the plane to Indianapolis and we had just 15 minutes from landing time to boarding time.

The plane to Atlanta was FULLL---very full to the point that there were NO seats available to anyone else and all of the bins were full with carry-ons.  The flight was short, but the plane was also noisy when it took off---noisier than any other I had flown on. Funny thing is....when we landed, the people who were supposed to stay on the plane for the next leg of the flight to Cleveland were asked to move to a different plane.  Hmmmmm....

As we sat and waited for to board the plane to Indianapolis we chatted with three Purdue students who were traveling home from a sorority meeting in North Carolina.  They were hoping for a snow day at some point (and they are getting their wish tomorrow!).  One was from Greenwood and an engineering major.  Another was from the Chicago area and majoring in something strange,  that neither Gary nor I could remember.  The third was napping and not communicating well, but her friends said she was a pre-pharmacy major.  All sophomores.

The flight to Indianapolis was good---and short!  An hour at the most.  I told Gary that it makes so much more sense to just fly to Florida when we go---two hours in the air and that is it. Of course there is time to be at the airport and go through security and board and get off of the planes.  But still.  When we look at driving time of 15 hours versus two hours in the air?  No contest.

After we landed and picked up our luggage, we hopped on the shuttle to Economy parking.  The driver was SO nice, so accommodating, so helpful.  We loaded everything into the Escape, paid the fee, and were on our way north.  We noticed that the snow had melted, the roads were fine, and the temps were in the high 30s.

We stopped at Cracker Barrel at the Whitestown exit for lunch.  I had grilled chicken fingers, sweet baby carrots, hash brown casserole, and fried apples with two biscuits.  Gary ordered fried chicken fingers, fries, cole slaw, and fried apples with biscuits.  We were very thirsty since we drained glasses of iced tea (me) and Diet Pepsi (him) 

After we pulled in the drive and parked in the garage, we unloaded everything, unpacked, and started laundry.  We did wash some things in the condos but the bulk of the clothes we took still needed to be washed. 

After a quick nap in the recliner, we went to Hilary and Blaine's for dinner and to take the things we purchased for the kids while we were in Florida.  Landon really liked the Nike shirt and the Lego set that was a new one at the Lego Store at Disney Springs.  Tessa got a drawstring bag from Rainforest filled with tops, including a couple with Minnie Mouse on the fronts.  And Owen?  He needed a new Woody that would speak when the string on his back was pulled. And he got one!  We had to search for him but we finally found him at a toy store that used to have tons of pieces for Mr. Potato Head (but it doesn't have that anymore).  He also got a couple of shirts.  The chicken and rice soup was excellent and the cornbread yummy.

It was SO good to sleep in our own bed last night.  Even though it was cold, the temp in the bedroom was hovering around  72* - heat rises, right?

The trip was a good one.  We had a good time. It was good to get away and do some things that we wanted to do---and we didn't have to do something or anything if we didn't want to. 

But there really is no place like home, and it is good to be here again.

And no...I was not sad that we were not going to the house in Pulaski either!