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09/21/2004: "Leaving, Part 2"

By now, I was ready to sit on the roadside and cry, but finally we did make our way back and get the name of a nearby hotel that DID serve meals on Sunday night! AND WINE with meals only. Dear Suzanne bought me my own small bottle, much to my eternal gratitude. The 'air-conditioning' advertised was of course a fan and it took a bit for our rooms to cool off. We were so tired that Kaye got locked in her room and couldn't figure out how to get out, but fortunately did work it out before morning. We were totally 'zombied' by then. Cheryl and I had not slept well the night before, and each got a couple of hours sleep before the alarm went off at 3:45, and we all got the car repacked and off to the airport by our 4:15 deadline. We pulled up and Kaye and I went in to wait for KLM's desk to open and get our seats assigned as they told us. The employees who told us to be there 2 hours in advance finally showed up at about 5 and then we went out and relieved Suzanne and Cheryl to go in and we took the rental car to where Cheryl had been told to put it. There was no key drop slot, so I went inside and ended up leaving the documentation and key on their desk with no attendant present, so that may yet have some sort of ramification. Finally, 4 zombies began their way homeward...and, I believe all are home. I ended up 'smuggling' some illegal food (a very dry, but tasty croussant home with a bit of cheese from the plane), and had it this morning. When we landed in Memphis, we were all told to leave all food bought in Europe on the plane...it was not allowed in to the United States. I'd planned to buy cheese in Amsterdam, but didn't because of having to 'lug' it home, and was awfully glad I didn't! Sure enough, Customs asked if we had any food products with us and I don't consider my homecoming b'fast or the chocolate in my suitcase 'food'...in fact, I consider chocolate 'medicine'! All in all, tired as we were, we'd do it again in a heartbeat, I'm sure. Ellie and John were perfect hosts and couldn't have made our time more pleasant, but I'll bet anything they went home and napped. I think we wore them out.

Uploading pics to the blog was more trouble than it was worth, so Ellie made some web pages for them and if you want to see a bit of what we saw and did, go to http://www.ellieclemens.com/PaintOutFriday.html and then at the bottom, hit the 'next' button and you'll see what she had or took the time to post for us. Thanks, Ellie!

I'll post some observations later and also arrange the pages better on this blog, but again, thanks, Jerry for making it all possible. Please leave comments for us...we loved the few who did and would love more feedback.

Pat