Thursday 28 April 2016


April 24-28, 2016
We had a great flight back to Denver.  The flight was a little shorter coming back; 6 hours 40 minutes with the jet stream. 

I didn’t carry my flashlight and poodle noodle with me; although, the thought did cross my mind.
I sat beside a young mom and her 9 month old baby.  Her husband and her two other children were sitting a few seats up from us and dad had his hands full because their little girl had a broken arm and wanted her mommy.

I was glad to help out.  She let me hold the baby a few times to give her a break as her arms kept falling asleep from holding her.  We finally got the baby settled and we raised the arm rest between us and put a little neck pillow on my lap and let her lay across the both of us.  I smiled to myself as mom was finally able to get a little sleep herself – they had to fly from Maui to Denver – Denver to Dallas – and then a 7 hour drive to their home in Missouri.  I helped her gather her belongings and get the baby into her snuggly so they could run to catch their connecting flight -  she was very thankful – little does she know she helped me with my airplane anxiety by allowing me to help out.  There is nothing sweeter than watching a baby sleep so peacefully  - I kept retrieving her soother when she spit it out and I was able to let go of my obsessive thoughts of plunging into the ocean without my poodle noodle and flashlight.

I love seeing young families travelling together – we met another couple a few days before we left- at the condo.  They were from Saskatchewan and had 5 kids.  They had decided to surprise their 2 teenage daughters with a trip to Maui – they didn’t tell them until they got to the airport, nor did they tell the 3 younger ones who were staying home with Grandma.  They just wanted to experience a vacation with their teenage girls while they still thought it was cool to travel with mom and dad.  We loved seeing the girls playing together in the pool and giggling around the condo.  We looked forward to hearing their stories in the evening of all the great places they snorkeled and where they went sightseeing.  They got along so well (reminded me of the Mathias girls). 
Things went very smooth at the Maui airport with Bill’s gear and we were charged $150 less than when we left Denver.  They are more familiar with windsurfing gear than Denver; although the ticket agent asked if we had oceans in Canada – yikes –

We were picked up by our friend Dave from the Front Range Shuttle Service (yes we had to get the executive shuttle againJ) He was enjoying the rest of our story and the drive went by quickly as we exchanged stories.  I think he gets a kick out of us.  He even came to see our trailer and said “you are kidding – you must really like each other!” when he saw what we have lived in for the last few months.
The Christian Brothers were glad to see us and had actually thought we were going to be back last Monday.  They had even dug our trailer out from an ice storm – they told us when we didn’t show they just laughed and said “I bet they heard about our weather and are staying another week!” 

Unfortunately in all our confusion getting off the plane we forgot the crate of chocolate macadamia nuts we had bought for them.  We have a lost and found report in with United – what do you think our chances are of getting that back???   I am working on a back- up plan – maybe ordering some more from Maui.
Well that’s about all – oh ya except that we got caught in a giant storm in Topeka Kansas – you might have heard about it on the news – it was pretty wild – we have never seen lightening or hail like that.  We did have to stop at a rest stop for a few hours along with a bunch of truckers – we were able to make it to a Wal-mart, but between the thunder, lightning, jet lag and time change we watched episodes of the walking dead (which was exactly how we felt) - until 2:30am. 

Today we blew thru Kansas, Missouri & Illinois – just right at the border of Illinois and Indiana – looks like we are heading to Hatteras and then to see our friends Jan, Jerry, Karen & Jim in Cape Cod, if they will have usJ 

1 comment:

  1. How could you forget the macadamia nuts!
    Happy to hear everything went well with your return to the US.
    Enjoy the rest of your trip!

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