Homeward Bound

On the morning we left for the airport I wanted to be sure I got a photo of Pyramid Lake. It is a man made lake up in the high dessert of the Los Padres National Forrest, & the island & the edges of mountain that are created & revealed are shaped in strong straight angles, depicting a pyramid. There's a glimpse of the island, towards the center left, in the lake, but it's easy to miss.
Leaving California---

My husband raises his glass to our very fine trip--

The last day of our trip had arrived. We were prepared to get up early on Friday 7/2/10, to be sure to have all of the packing done, so we could visit with the Fam.* before our scheduled departure. We had a rental car to return, so the location of the Ace Rental Car place, had to be located, & then a quick shuttle to the airport which was just next door.

LA X is one of the biggest & busiest airports in the world. We continued to do great as all the staff & attendants accurately directed us from one location to the next, & from one line to another. Being it was the beginning of a holiday weekend, they were well fortified with staff, & much to my surprise the individuals we encountered from one point to the next, were very friendly, courteous & most informative, which is not always the usual case when going through these required homeland security processes.

Our flight home was not a direct one. It was necessary to stop in Phoenix, Arizona, before our final leg to TF Green in Providence R.I. The stop in Arizona was A0k, there was a little turbulence over the dessert before the landing, but all, still good, & in a little less than an hour we were one with the clouds again.

Our return flight from Phoenix was a around 4 hrs. & 40 minutes. I made sure I got up for my sky walk, as advised by my dear friend back home. She recommended that we do that several times, to insure good circulatory health, so we did, & such a simple thing to do too.

On all of our flights my husband had the window seat, which was excellent, as he certainly seemed to enjoy the views, & I as in the middle each time situated next to a kind & interesting person. This final trip home I was next to very sweet young guy named Michael, he had just turned 14 that day, he & his sister were returning from their Grand Canyon vacation. with their parents. He had what seemed like a really cool poster of the Grand Canyon, he said it was "The Grand Canyon With Lightning", which he had carefully rolled up in plastic. When I got up to do a few of those brief ail walks, I gently urged him to protect his cool poster, so it wouldn't get crushed with my comings & goings. He also was traveling with his skateboard, of which we all urged him to have put in the over head compartment, & not on the floor which was of course his first choice.

We wished our seat companion a Happy 14th Birthday in the sky, as we continued on our journey home.

There were times during this flight, that one would wonder why a parent wouldn't change their baby's odorous diaper in the plane's bathroom, instead of putting an entire section of the plane through the worst possible smell you could ever be quarantined in. That occurred several times, & other than feeling like one was flying in an old fashioned diaper can, the flight was perfect & Big Bird's friend Oscar, would have just loved it!

We arrived safe & sound Friday 7/2/10 at apx. 11:40PM. On the way in we saw the sparkling cities of Fall River & Providence, along the Atlantic coast, & small bursts of fire works puffing out from the land. After retrieving my luggage, & returning once again by shuttle to the car rental place, we would be 45 minutes away from home. It would all be good we thought, as we were still living on California time, so for our bio-rhythms we were experiencing 9:40PM. After picking up our car, we decided that allowing Greta our friendly GPS to direct us out of Providence, would be a good thing, & it was.

Our old Volvo Classic pulled up onto our newly refurbished dirt driveway, in our neck of the woods, out here in northeast Connecticut. We had done it, our dream trip of decades, from one coast to another, & with a stop in Chicago along the way. It was a perfect trip, beyond our expectations, with oh, so very much, more.

Of this we are truly grateful, for we say, *Amen*, *Amen*, *Amen*.