May 14, 2010 We flew home today. Thank Goodness. Hubby slept from around 10:30 pm~ish until when the alarm went off at 04:30 am. I was up until almost 1:00 am folding and packing for the airport and making-sure we could take showers and quickly finish packing the last few items before we had to meet the taxi downstairs at 05:30 am. Central time... this would be waking at 3:30 am and leaving for the airport at 4:30 am. Yikes. Well, after 3 1/2 hours of sleep, the alarm did sound. We showered and downstairs with about ten minutes to spare. I am becoming a better packer with each flight ~ especially since we did not check luggage ~ only had our carry-ons this time. Nice.
Taxi ride to the hotel was interesting. The driver was talkative and gave us some extra information on Orlando, the weather, the tourist season, etc. Check-in at the airport was easy. Again, for some reason, I had read that MCO was sooooo hard to navigate and etc. This was, again, completely untrue. MCO is far easier to navigate than DFW. Actually, MCO was simple. There was a beautiful SeaWorld shop in the airport ~ decorated like the park probably is ~ a good sell for those arriving! Anyway, we got picked for the extensive search, pat down, go through the special doors, etc crapola. I was oddly fine with it but I did wonder what they were doing to my laptop. I thought it was just me but then I looked back and saw hubby coming through the glass doors too. I told him we were picked because he looked like a drug dealer! HA! I think they quickly realized we weren't phased by all the attention and let us go. The flight on Allegiant was fantastic again. Again, Allegiant left early ~ they board 30 minutes before take-off time and they leave ON TIME. When you purchase the tickets it says they quit checking people in for their flights 40 minutes before take-off time and they are not kidding. The flight attendant said, this time, as we were listening to the pre-flight spiel about air masks "If you are sitting next to a child or someone acting like a child, please put your air masks on first and then proceed to assist the person next to you if need be." Later, he said something about asking flight attendants for assistance and followed it with "Flight attendants don't bite." I don't where they got their wording but it is quite funny. We landed in Springfield with rainy, stormy weather (again) and 25 minutes early!! We were hungry so we finally got out of the airport-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-but-a-farm-field i.e. Springfield "International" and went to... IHOP! Finally. Hubby didn't want anything sweet so he didn't order chocolate, chocolate chip pancakes but we did have a nice, clean meal. The IHOP in Springfield is clean, nice, and has an updated menu ~ day and night difference from the cruddy one in Orlando
After eating we went to Best Buy and spent at least an hour. I spent a good 30 minutes reading Chelsea Handler's book "Are you there vodka, It's Me, Chelsea!" I have GOT to buy that book now. I am still kicking myself for not picking it up while I was there. I have a million things to do at home so I decided a book will be a reward I give myself once I get half of those million things done. Unfortunately, we are coming back from vacation with a big to-do list. Eh.
Wondering about our names? These are our travel names - because everyone calls us by our first names on flights, tours, etc... and they pronounce our names "Eee-duh" and "Jaw-un" ...Every. Single. Time. :)
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