Homeward Bound

I couldn't sleep much. Too excited from the day's events. Also the revelers returning from the Fringe might have had something to do with it as well since they were a tad loud.

I got up around 2:30 to walk over to the reception office and confirm the taxi reservation. Everything was good to go. Junel had gotten up and was getting ready and I knocked on Dave and Teresa's door and they were pretty much ready too.

The taxi was five minutes early, we checked out, and were on our way. When we got there, none of the airlines were open yet, so they got some coffee, I got a Diet Coke, and we waited.

While we were waiting Meg Peart showed up. She had stayed an extra week, had gotten a Scotrail pass and had toured the Highlands. We were jealous that she had gotten to see Eilean Donan Castle and we shared pictures.

I checked email on an internet kiosk and sent a short note to my parents that Junel and I had gotten engaged. I also found out that buyers of my house were making some exorbitant requests (at least in my humble opinion) and I would have to deal with that when I got back. Nice.

We finally got baggage checked, and went to the gate. The flight left Edinburgh about 6:00 am and we got to Heathrow around 7:30. Heathrow, the minicity of its own. A bus took us to Terminal 3, the international terminal, we went through security, and then more waiting. We did some last minute shopping for some gifts and around 9:45 the screen showed us we were to leave from Gate 32. Dave and Teresa had spent a little extra to upgrade to seats by the exit so Dave would have room for those long legs. Then it was walk, walk, walk to Gate 32.

Check passport again. Wait some more. Finally we got to board and were ready to sleep during the ten hour flight back to San Francisco. What we didn't know was that this flight had over 60 movies which one could choose to watch. So Junel, Meg and I didn't sleep much, but watched a lot of movies and ate a lot of mediocre airline food. Meg needed one more Bloody Mary too.

We got to San Francisco about 1:30 p.m. PDT. In Edinburgh that would be 9:30 p.m. We still had a 4 hour drive back to Tahoe. I was expecting it would take us a while to get through Customs, but it wasn't too bad. We picked up our luggage and went to get a shuttle to the Ramada where we had left Dave and Teresa's RAV.

Meg's mom picked her up. What was funny was that we met up with them again at the In-N-Out Burger in Fairfield. We grabbed some burgers and fries (Funny that's what most Americans do when they get back from overseas.) and then headed up to Tahoe.

Dave hung on admirably, driving the whole way back with only partially nodding off once. We got back about 6:30 p.m. In Edinburgh it was now 2:30 a.m. Monday. So came to an end the trip of a lifetime. Fringe Trip '05.