Flying Home

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Well…. we were bad kids on the last night of the cruise. We listened to some music, walked around here and there, etc. Didn’t get to bed until after 1:30am sometime… and the boat began slipping into the New York harbor a little after 5am. I tiptoed around and grabbed my camera and went outside and watched. Everything was quiet except for the nonstop early morning traffic on the Verrazano Bridge. I probably took a hundred pictures. It was chilly and I was exhausted but I kept slipping out to the balcony and then back in the room to finish packing the last suitcase. I could see the city waking-up every time I stepped on the balcony so it was nearly impossible to stay in the room. By the way, you know what the one thing we noticed the entire time we were near NYC, both times? It is buzzing with helicopters. At any given time you can count five or six in the sky. Early this morning, at one point, there had to have been at least 10 or 12. I couldn’t keep track – they were everywhere like noisy, lighted birds in the sky. I imagine there are a bunch of George Wade’s in New York (Hugh Grant’s character in Two Weeks Notice in case I lost you).



We were off the ship by 10am. We took the ship’s transfer bus to the Newark airport. We didn’t have a flight out until 4pm which seems crazy but it worked-out great because Newark has smoking outside his doors and a big shopping and eating and bathroom area anyone can access prior to going through security. We checked our bags. Kamie smoked. We talked to lots of other cruisers that had late flights. We shopped a little. I didn’t get an “I Love NYC” t-shirt but I did get a New Jersey shirt. I liked the people we met that were from Jersey and the people we encountered in Jersey. Also, New Jersey was clean – at least the parts we saw. After leaving New Jersey, we had a semi-short layover in Baltimore. It was dark when we left Baltimore and our plane had exactly 50 people out of 143 available seats. Behind me was Kamie and one other guy. The flight attendants were giddy. Which reminds me… the flight attendants on Southwest Airlines are hilarious. Cracking jobs (all of them) and being sarcastic. One of the ladies also told us they have no restrictions on the amount of food you can bring on the airplane but over Thanksgiving last year some passenger tried to bring homecooked food for 80 people on the plane with her. Funny the things people do….



We pulled into our driveway in West Plains at 1am almost exactly. It is literally freezing here. What have ya’ll done with the weather anyway?? We turned-on our heat to a higher number than we had left it, dragged all the suitcases inside, and within 15 minutes I had crawled into bed.



Here are a few things we learned from other cruisers talking to us in the airport today…



A lady from California flew to New Jersey with her husband. They can fly on CA driver’s license. They got to the cruise ship and he had not packed his passport. They refused to allow him on the cruise. She told him he had “one job” to do – pack his passport – and he didn’t do it. She went ahead and took the cruise without him and he flew home. The two ladies telling us about this told us in a manner suggesting the lady from California wasn’t the friendliest lady in town. Kamie & I have been lucky so far… 26 countries… 12 years of traveling… we’ve never lost a bag or missed a flight or forgot to pack something like a passport…. But things do happen and over time, something like that will happen…. We would never go ahead and take the trip without the other person. Ludicrous! Ms California will be lucky if her husband is home when she gets there.



We also learned the ship is sailing to the Bahamas next. This upcoming week is called “Jersey week” and all the New Jersey schools are out for a week. They announced they had over 1,500 kids coming onboard for the week! Geez!



Well, this trip is over and it’s back to work for me tomorrow and I am NOT ready. I have at least 3 more loads of laundry to wash, I need to prepare some things, compare receipts with bank statements and credit card statements, etc. I didn’t even hit 5,000 steps today but I was busy busy busy all day long. I suppose doing laundry and making lunch and grocery shopping and visiting my parents, and answering texts and etc doesn’t take a lot of steps. Eye opening. So anyway… in a week or so we will have a good reflection on how this trip went overall. I can already say it was a good trip for meeting new and interesting people, it was relaxing, and I loved Maine. I now want to do a driving trip through New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. The ship was very nice but I would prefer Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of Seas class ship so we will have to try one of those out someday maybe. In general, I did come to one conclusion that we are definitely going to stick too…. shorter trips. I think the max length of a cruise we’ll take is 7 days but I would prefer a 3 to 5 night getaway in the future. Kamie also mentioned something which is a no-brainer…. we are going to attempt to get flights which do not require a pre-night hotel stay in St Louis. It’s a waste of time and sleep plus all that extra packing. If it costs a bit more to fly out of St Louis at noon but you get to spend the night before at your house… in our opinion, it’s worth it.



Thanks everyone for reading along, making comments, and for sharing in our journey. It’s been a nice two weeks away. We’ll see you all next month when we fly out to see the Christmas Markets!

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