SUMMARY Twenty-four hours after we checked out of our Singapore hotel we were home at last, home at last! Nothing like sleeping in your own bed! Thanks for coming on this journey with us! The end! - Karen
DETAIL Some commotion in the airplane cabin wakes us from our less-than-ideal sleep. The flight attendants are moving about. It’s apparently time to eat again. What time is it? Ah, four more hours of flying til LAX. Sigh.
Choices for lunch are the same as they were for dinner. It’s good. People rave about Singapore Airlines, and it’s fine but it’s still an airline and you’re still eating at 30,000’ (where food doesn’t taste as good as on terra firma).
We land in LAX and go through Immigration. The non-US citizens are funneled to one long line and we Americans go towards a shorter line. On the way we realize we’ll be going to an even shorter (really non-existent) line for the Global Entry process. I show the machine my face and passport and the glass gates quickly let me through. Karen doesn’t even show her passport. The machine looks at her face and knowing who is flying in around now recognizes her and opens the gate. Nice!
Our luggage eventually shows. Fellow travelers from our flight are standing around looking catatonic. Going through Customs I notice one or two agents picking off a person here or there to question, but otherwise you wouldn’t know you were going through Customs.
From the international terminal to one of the LAX domestic ones (for Southwest Airlines) we have a long walk outside. It’s quite cool, which wakes us up and feels lovely after being in Southeast Asia close to the equator.
In the nine countries of our trip we went through many security checks. This one in LAX for this terminal is one of the dingiest and biggest ‘goat-rodeo’. The guy telling people to empty their pockets really doesn’t like his job or any of us. And no one is gathering empty trays after they exit the x-ray machine. They just back up, pressure building from the new trays being pushed by the conveyor belt. Eventually two trays give in to the pressure, rising up and tumbling onto other trays not yet emptied by the hapless travelers. Not a great introduction to America. Southwest Airlines has many nice airports nearby. We have to think this one is at the bottom of their barrel.
Waiting for the flight isn’t much better. There aren’t enough seats in the waiting area, threadbare as they are. Maybe we’re just cranky from lack of sleep. The announcement about a delay doesn’t help. Thankfully that turns out to be a non-issue. We do leave 15 minutes late but that just means we’re not charged for my in-flight cocktail. The beautiful view of the lights of Los Angeles, as we take off, somewhat makes up for LAX’s unpleasantness.
A little after 2:00 a.m. we land in Austin, getting in a bit early. Alas that means our gate (the only one available) still has its departing flight sitting there. After fifteen minutes we taxi to our gate and deplane. The airport is still and so empty. There’s not a business open. I run outside to check the weather as we wait for our luggage. It’s quite cool. Lovely! Unusual to head to central Texas to cool down.
After a quick drive through a sleeping Austin, the Lyft driver drops us at our house. It looks like we left it, albeit with more leaves on the trees and bushes. Big thanks to our neighbors who took care of the house while we were gone. We get into our sleeping clothes, I turn the water heater temperature back up, and we head off to bed. Lying there awake at 4 a.m. I can’t help but think that our bodies think it’s 4 p.m. Ugh.
But we’re home, safe and sound. Trip over. Good trip! Epic! We’ll be processing all our experiences for a while. We don’t think we’ll be repeating something like that any time soon. We have lots of good memories and pictures. But for now, we’re home for a few months. Thanks for coming along! Talk to you later.
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