On closing eval, this vacation tested out well. As we woke up on Wednesday to pack our bags and prep for our drive back to Philly and our flight home, Stacy and I traded all the things we'd intended but didn't get to do - our little regrets and disappointments. We didn't spend enough time with the folks we got to see, and didn't spend any time with a number we wanted to. We knew we saw only a small fraction of all the cool things we could have done in the places we visited. (Yes, even single-stop sign Patten, we're sure, held undiscovered opportunities!) But my back was starting to ache for the familiar lumps and bumps of my own personal mattress, and the thought of making the daily 45 minute death-march up the San Diego Freeway to El Segundo didn't seem as ominous as usual. There were friends and church in California that already seemed a world and lifetime away, as though we already needed some catching-up.
Our flight out of Philly was at 2:00pm, so we needed to hit the road by 9:30 or 10:00. Feeling decadent in our waning hours, I sprung for the hot breakfast buffet at the hotel. While we were eating and Stacy was working herself into her usual pre-flight lather (she doesn't fly well), Jeff and his two older kids, J and G, came wandering over to our table -- they had come to see us off. With our pancakes polished and our scrambled eggs safely stowed, we packed the car and said our final good-byes to Jeff and the mini-vBs. We mounted up and found the freeway to Philadelphia.There's not much to say about the rest of the day. We got to the airport without incident and with time to spare; our flight was punctual and generally bland. The kids again did astoundingly well on the plane. It was only during the final half hour of our "descent into the greater Los Angeles area" that N started to show the beginnings of unravelling. It was a happy break-up, involving lots of chatting and wiggling about and kicking the seat in front of him, so it could have been worse. There was a small kid a couple rows behind us who wailed inexorably, so that took a lot of the pressure off. Nevertheless I contemplated asking the air marshal if I could borrow his taser for a moment. We landed untased.
As we descended the escalator and flowed with the crowd through the double doors into the baggage claim we felt, smelt and heard our good old Los Angeles. There, across the mass of zig-zagging people stood our friend Pattie Mendez, waiting to shuttle us home. She was such a welcome sight I almost got teary. Coming home is always so much more palatable when you've got as good folks to come home to as the ones you've left behind.
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