We're Back...

After a pretty long day of traveling, we are safe and sound back at home. When we left our hotel in Anchorage at about 5:30 AM yesterday, it was around 50 degrees. We flew to Chicago first. The flight should have been five hours and 45 minutes but ended up being closer to six and a half hours because of the weather (lots of thunderstorms in the area). Arriving at O'Hare after the peace and tranquility of Alaska was quite a shock to the system. Nothing like a quick jolt of reality. And we were still in the Midwest!

We boarded our plane bound for Baltimore at about 6:20 PM. The A/C was not working, so we had to sit in a hot airplane waiting for it to be fixed. That was about a 30-40 minute delay. Then after it was fixed and we pulled away from the gate, we had to sit on the runway waiting for more thunderstorms to pass before we could take off. The temperature in the plane reached a stifling 82 degrees (at foot level, which is where my thermometer key chain was). Now, that is not horribly hot, but inside an airplane with 100 other people and very little air moving was rather unpleasant. After about a 25-minute wait, we took off. Although there were storms in Baltimore, too, it was clear enough for us to land. We finally made it home around 10:30. It was in the upper 70s and quite humid. And it is supposed to hit 97 degrees today!

The dogs were quite excited to see us. I think they thought we abandoned them for good. Eric said that CeCe, our neurotic dog, had diarrhea for at least a week because she was upset about our being gone.

It is nice to be home, but I sure wish we could have brought the weather with us.