Homeward bound......

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9:08 am (MT) - Tuesday - October 10th - 44º F in Livingston, MT with humidity at 44%, and wind at 15 mph out of the south......partly cloudy, and not as frigid as I had anticipated!  Arrived home from SoCal last night around 1:50 am after a mostly uneventful flight home.

Monday is a work day for my daughter and son-in-law so we began to hear them stirring around upstairs around 5:30 am.....so glad I don't have do to that anymore for at least a month!  Nonetheless, we were up by 6:30 and beginning to plan out our day.  Our first flight out of John Wayne International was not until 4:25 pm so we had a lot of time to kill before that flight.  We could have gotten a flight out much earlier in the day, but that would have meant fighting morning rush hour traffic, and leaving Ontario before 6 am......not going to happen on my watch!

We did leave around 9:30 am to make the drive down to Orange County and a Verizon store near John Wayne Airport for TLE......she has been due for an upgrade for about a year, and her existing iPhone's storage capacity of 16 gb was not cutting it anymore.  About half way there we noticed a brush fire beginning in the Anaheim Hills.....thankfully we got past it before they closed the freeway!  We arrived at the Verizon store near John Wayne Int'l around 10:30.....about an hour later we left with a new iPhone 8+ for TLE with 64 gb of storage.....I'm sure she'll find a way to fill up that extra space.

So, it was 11:30 and we still had 5 hours until our plane left, but good sense told us we should be there around 2:30 to get our tickets, check our luggage and work our way through security, so make it 3 hours to kill.  We were near the South Coast Plaza and there is an Edwards Theaters multiplex there so we thought we might take in a movie, but as it turned out none of the movies we had interest in would start until almost 2 pm, so that idea was shelved.  All things being equal we opted to find a Rubio's Coastal Grill for some of their original fish tacos.....we found one just a mile from the Plaza, and were there within minutes.  By this time the plume of smoke from the Anaheim Hills fire was casting a pall across the previously clear blue skies......

.....we placed our orders and quickly found an alfresco dining option outside.....

......by the time we finished our leisurely lunch it was 1:15 pm, and we still had over an hour to kill before our arrival at the airport so we next located a Goodwill.......by 1:45 pm we had decided there was nothing there without which we could not continue living so we hopped back in the Toyota Corolla and made our way over to John Wayne....by the time we had dropped off the rental car, and walked a block or so to the Delta ticket desk it was nearing 2:30.  Good thing we did get there early as the bag we were checking weighed in at 58 pounds!  How could that be?  The surcharge for an overweight bag is $100!  Just a few days before it weighed in at 48 pounds!  Then it occurred to us.....we had added 3 bottles of single malt scotch for our return flight......doh!  After quick repacking we got it down to 51 pounds, and the nice lady let us skate even though we were still 1 pound over.  By 2:50 pm we had made our way to gate C3 and settled in to wait for our boarding call for our 4:25 pm flight to Salt Lake City......

 

.......about 3:30, just before they would begin boarding an announcement came over the PA system advising that VP Mike Pence's Air Force 2 jet was getting ready for takeoff and there was a hold on all ground traffic until his plane took to the friendly skies......ultimately our flight left about 50 minutes late at 5:15 pm.......not a problem as we had a 3 hour layover in SLC before our next flight, which was now just over 2 hours.....no complaints here......

.......nevertheless, the Delta flight crew provided adult beverages free of charge to somewhat ameliorate the inconvenience of those who had 'tight' connections in SLC......

....as we winged our way northeast to SLC we were treated to a beautiful sunset......

.....our flight out of SLC actually lifted off a few minutes early, and we arrived in Billings, MT, back where we started, almost 20 minutes early at 11:30 pm.  By the time we had collected our luggage from baggage claim, and walked 2+ blocks to the VW in the long term parking lot it was just after midnight.  We were on I-90 flying low at 75 mph by 12:15 am, and back at the Newell by 1:50 am.  The temperature was in the high 30's, but it was (and still is) windy, which made it feel much colder.  Thankfully I had left (intentionally) our fireplace heater set at 62º F in our absence, so the interior was very hospitable.  We soon had the bedroom and bathroom heaters going to remove what little chill there was.  We were in bed and drifting off to slumberland by 2:15 am.

All in all our day was very uneventful, and now I sit back in my familiar morning seat looking out the passenger side window in our salon while composing today's missive.  We are tired, but I know there will be a few naps for me today in between all the things I need to do so we can once again roll our wheels Wednesday towards new horizons and new adventures.

Thanks for stopping by!

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