There’s No Place Like Home

Our day yesterday was long and tiring, but we are finally back home. We started by packing our things and getting ready to make the trek to the Baltimore Airport. Since we had a little spare time, I flicked on the TV and found Return of the Jedi on HBO. It didn't take very long before I realized that I've been a poor father. My kids knew Darth Vader. That was it. They couldn't recognize Chewbacca, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, C3P0, R2D2, none of them. Oh well, I guess we'll have to do a Star Wars marathon sometime soon.

Anyway, the time came to head out, so we gathered our things and rode to the very farthest reaches of the Washington Metro system (about 45 minutes) and waited for the airport shuttle. Packed on the shuttle like sardines, we rode another 30 minutes to the airport and were dropped at the first available curb. Following that, we walked from concourse E to concourse C to find the American ticket counter and get our boarding passes so that we could go wait in line for security. While the security line at DFW was a surprise on the way out since I almost never wait in line there, it was no surprise to stand in line for twenty minutes in Baltimore. No other airport that I've ever been to gets people through security as quickly as DFW.

Once through security we had to find something to feed the kids. Our choices were Wendy's and Potbelly's. We went for Wendy's, and found the same level of customer service as we had noticed throughout our trip. Our order was slow in being prepared and incorrect when we got it. When asked to have it corrected, they begrudgingly slapped a few things together, wrapped it up in foil and called it a hamburger. Reagan had ordered a salad with her chicken and wanted some ranch dressing. She stood at the counter unacknowledged for at least five minutes before Leah went up there and got their attention; even then Reagan ended up with chipotle dressing instead of the ranch that was requested, but her sisters shared their dipping ranch with her so she didn't have to go back to the counter. I tell you what, I really think that we are spoiled with great customer service in most places down here in the South.

Finally, we were on the plane and it started to rain. Guess what, we got to wait on the tarmac for the weather to clear. Then we got a report that bad weather was moving in to the DFW area, so we needed to wait on that too. The pilot warned us that it could be up to an hour and half, but we ended up only sitting for about fifteen minutes. Definitely not the worst that I've had to sit through. We kept getting weather reports about DFW during the flight and somewhere (probably over Kansas or Oklahoma) we got put into a holding pattern.

We flew around in circles for about an hour before we were allowed to continue on toward DFW, but with everything backed up we were going to have a to take our time getting there. It seemed like ages, and the kids were so tired of being on an airplane, but we finally started to descend. I expected to have another bumpy ride on the way down and got the sick bags ready for everyone, but we actually came down smooth as silk all the way to the runway. I was very impressed. After all of that and waiting on our checked luggage, our plane that was supposed to land a little before 6pm had us leaving the airport a little after 8pm.

We grabbed some dinner on the way home. Enjoyed some good customer service; it was so nice to be able to send one of my kids to the counter and have them be taken care of, and then we finally got to the house. All of our suitcases are piled up in the living room since it was a little after 10pm when we finally got to the house. We just threw pajamas on all the kids and everyone went straight to sleep.

It was a great trip, but definitely one of those vacations that makes you long for a vacation when it's all over.