Chapter 2:  Travel Day

We actually went home for a few days, to catch a wedding, and do some things we needed to do before our next phases of our journey began.  We left Sunday to get to Indyand spent a lovely evening with the grands and “Grammy” eating grilled burgers and watching and feeding a fire.

On Monday we traveled to Urbana-Champaign to listen to Max defend his thesis, and wow (!) that was pretty impressive!  He can now be called Dr. Max!  It’s been a long journey but well worth it.

John-Paul got up super early to take us to the airport on Tuesday.  It is a travel day.  The airport was really busy but the lines through security went quickly enough.  We weren’t lucky enough to be pre-check this time.  We boarded and enjoyed our nonstop flight to Oakland.  The flights to Hawaii were later in the day so we hopped into a rental and drove to San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.  We always walk the bridge when we are in town!  The air was cool and it smelled of eucalyptus! Lovely!!  We’ve thought of getting a eucalyptus house plant but it is toxic to cats so we don’t think Phoebe would approve.  The bridge was busy with walkers and many, many bicyclists!  There were more than I have ever seen!  During the week the bicyclists and pedestrians share the walkway; the weekends, generally, the bicyclists use the other lane (This one is never open to pedestrians!).  It was a cool breezy day.  We walked back; I bought my postcard stamped with the date and we hopped back into our car. We drove down to Pacifica to walk on the pier and grab a late lunch.  The High Tide Crepery has amazing savory crepes and they were as good as we remembered!  We then headed back to Oakland, waving hello to Burlingame as we drove by (John-Paul’s family’s home for nearly two years), San Mateo and his former office building, and then across the bridge to the airport.  We made great progress through the airport as it really isn’t that big!  They actually started the boarding process early so we are seated and having our snack.  We have about 5 hours until we land, and we will then be 6 hours behind home.

Flying is one of our favorite things to do.  It is amazing what the world looks like from up above!  The colors and shapes and textures.  The plains and mountains.  Yosemite!  Wow.

Tomorrow we are touring the WW II memorials.  Until then....

Addendum:  It is amazing how the safety card in the back seat of a plane takes on a new meaning when you start flying over the ocean—-especially that part about water rescues!  :)

I kept seeing what I thought were whitecaps in the Pacific, but they are clouds.   Weird to be on top.  I was so hoping to see whales casually swimming by, but no such luck.  The sunset was really lovely though!