Going home to the ATL

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Today's travels are pretty boring for it consists of interstate - airport - airplane - airport - interstate. There are no pictures to post, no exciting stories, no wondrous sites to behold.

We checked out of our hotel early in hopes to avoid the chaos that sometimes surrounds a presidential visit and we were successful. There were still road blocks and police everywhere, but no president. We joined in the traffic of thousands of others during morning rush hour and started our way to SFO. It tok a bit longer than expected due to the slow traffic. After finding our road for the car rental return we searched for a gas station that had a car wash for our car was quite dirty. It was not easy to find.

After obtaining a clean car, we decided there wasn't enough time to do anything, so we turned the car in and went to the airport and waited for our flight. We were about 3 hours early, so it wasn't too bad. We ate lunch, waited and boarded. Our flight was on time and we were on our way home. The ride was a little bumpy, but non-eventful. This is where my extra time that was granted a week ago was taken back away. Time traveling.

We landed in Atlanta about 30 minutes early. But they did not have a gate or gate crew ready for us, who we waited on the tarmac for about 30 minutes for the plane to be taxi'd the last 30 feet to the gate. We de-planed and went to claim our baggage - but since no gate crew was ready, no one was there to take our bags off the plane either. So we waited and waited. They eventually came. Nearly 2 hours after landing, we finally had all of our belongings, found our truck and hit the interstate - only to come to an abrupt stop - construction! At 11:00 at night on the road from the airport. Great! After being delayed there a while, we started moving again but were soon stopped for roughly 10 police cars to come racing down the road, but not sure why. Arriving early had no benefit whatsoever.

Then we were really on our way. We made it to our exit and stopped by McDonalds, one of the very few places open at 11:30 for we were hungry and gotten off schedule with the time traveling. Then we were home! We unpacked and had to unwind a bit before calling it a night.

Our trip has ended and to everyone's delight we are able to sleep in our own beds. I am so glad to have the weekend to get things back in order before going back to work, but poor Stephen has to work today (Saturday). I will end this trip's blog with a few thoughts and comments of things observed or learned while traveling in CA.

- Full-sized beds are too small for 2 people to share, regardless of size of people or comfort of beds.

- Many stores in CA expect you to have your own shopping bags and will charge you extra if you want one to put the items in you just bought from them.

- Most hotels charge extra for wifi connectivity unless you go to the lobby or are close enough to the conference room and can connect to that connection without them knowing.

- Ground squirrels are everywhere and are very friendly. They will eat of your hand and chase you down if they even think you have food - just ask Shelby.

- Cell service is pretty much non-existent in the mountains, but seems ok along the coast.

- Weather is much hotter in the mountains but colder on the coast - always take a jacket.

- You can get 'photographers cramp' from holding a camera too long.

- The only restaurant to sell sweet tea in California is McDonalds - my children learned that having water with a meal will cause no harm.

- The mountain of laundry triples once you unload it from the suitcase.

- I still do not like the city.

- Regardless of how tired I feel or much I long for my pillow, I am always ready to see this beautiful country we live in and the travel bug inside me only intensifies.

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