the trip home...

so today . . . we are finally home.

i say finally, like it was an ordeal to get here... like we felt the need to kiss the ground once we got here... like we thought we might never make it home...

well, it wasn't quite that bad, but it also wasn't exactly smooth sailing...

it started last night, with the packing. even though we didn't have to check out until 11:00 this morning, i thought it might be a good idea for me to pack last night. i am not a morning person. i would rather stay up late to finish a task than to get up early. and so, about 11:30 last night, i started packing...

i started packing at 11:30 last night, because i really didn't think it would take too long. really. it wasn't like i had to decide what to pack--those decisions had already been made. it wasn't like i had to worry about if everything would fit--it all fit when i packed it to get here. it wasn't like i had even gone to the mall--my biggest packing challenge was going to be fitting in our two miniature louisville sluggers! so i don't quite understand how i was up until 1:00 a.m. packing...

it shouldn't have been that hard. i should have been able to pack in 15 minutes. all i had to do was throw everything back into the suitcase, right? um, no. that is not how i do things. i had to pack efficiently, like a puzzle. and so i did. i gathered everything together, put the shoes in the corners and the boots on the bottom, rolled the hanging clothes, and stuffed everything else into the nooks and crannies. there was not one wasted spot in my suitcase. and i got it all in. well, almost all of it...

my long insulated coat wouldn't fit, and i couldn't figure out why! really, the only extra stuff in the suitcase were our two miniature louisville sluggers! there was no explanation. i guess i could have unzipped the extra three inches in my suitcase, but now i was afraid that my suitcase was going to be too heavy. that had happened to me once, and believe me, it was not an experience i was anxious to repeat. so my solution? i was just going to have to wear diandra's bulky sweater, and then my long insulated coat, and THEN my shorter jacket--yes, two coats and a sweater... when i finally went to bed, i was not looking forward to spending the next day dressed like the abominable snowman.

rollie saved me. when i explained my situation this morning, he said he thought he might have room for my coat. which he did. and so i was able to spend the day much more comfortably dressed. which is good, because it turned out to be a loooong day.

our flight didn't leave louisville until 4:30, so we had some time to kill. we put our bags in the car, checked out, and spent the next hour and a half sitting in the hotel conservatory with our electronics until it was late enough to eat lunch. we could have ventured outside to take some pictures with the interesting architecture or landmarks, but it was COLD, COLD, COLD outside. so we did the smart thing and stayed in.

we made it to the airport with plenty of time before our plane left. the baggage line was short. security was easy. and so we got to our gate almost two hours early. normally this is not a problem for me--i know rollie likes to be at the gate early, so i just plan on reading or playing on my phone or computer or shopping. but we were about to get on a long flight, so i was saving my battery power. and let's just say, the louisville chamber of commerce must want you to spend all your money in town, because they give you very little opportunity to spend it at the airport...

we got great seats on the plane. which is good, because our flight ended up being four and a half hours long as we battled a head wind. when we neared las vegas (where we were going to change planes,) we realized that we were only going to have a few minutes to get to our next flight. fortunately we were sitting in the first row of seats and were able to zip out the door of the plane and race down the concourse to our next gate.

i've never been in the airport in las vegas. i think you could spend your whole vacation there! it smelled wonderful, with all the food possibilities. and not only were there a lot of shops, there were also kiosks selling pretty much anything you might want, lining the concourse. and there i was, with no time to look at anything! not that i was going to buy stuff--i already had my souveniers--but i just like to see what i am not buying... and there was no time to stop. although, i was beginning to think that even if we made the scheduled flight, there was no way, NO WAY our luggage was going to make it.

i have the worst luck of anyone i know, when it comes to my luggage arriving at the same time and place that i do. maybe it is because i am usually on the cheap flights, which usually means changing airplanes, but i have been left standing alone at the baggage carousel on more than one trip, hoping that just one more bag--mine--will come down the conveyor belt. i figured our luggage was still headed to san jose, even though we were not...

when we reached the gate, they were just loading the last of the passengers onto our outgoing flight. we quickly explained our situation and were given the option of waiting for the next plane (which was an hour and a half later, and would have our luggage, they said,) or taking the last seats on this flight and then waiting at lax for our bags.

this seemed like an easy decision--wait for the next flight. that would give us time to eat, possibly better seats, and maybe we could even walk more slowly past all those kiosks... we killed another hour and a half until finally boarding our final flight. (we sure spent a lot of time today, just waiting...) forty five minutes later we were back in los angeles. i wanted to kiss the ground!

we headed for the baggage carousel. i was not confident that our bags had even made it onto this flight, but we had done our best to arrive at the same time our bags did, even taking the later flight to get home. i started settling into a chair with our carry on bags while rollie waited for the checked bags to hopefully come down the conveyor belt. and then suddenly, there he was in front of me, before the conveyor belt had even started, with our bags.

"you won't believe this," he said, "but our bags came in on our original flight. they have been waiting here for us!"

sigh. some days it doesn't matter what i do, i can't win...