Back at Thrifty Car Rental, we returned the car and then waited
and waited and waited and waited for the shuttle to take us to the airport.
Thrifty obviously has some real problem at LAX. When we and other disgruntled
customers complained about the extremely slow service, the staff was equally
slow to explain or apologize.
The LAX-based employees of Delta Airlines weren’t
doing much better this morning. Two agents at the baggage-check counter got in
an argument that held up an already slow-moving line, and the agents working
the gate sounded more and more desperate every time they went on the PA system
to plead for volunteers willing to give up their seats on our overbooked
flight. (We might have been willing, had the airline been willing to offer compensation
commensurate with the inconvenience. Note
to Delta: A $400 voucher just doesn’t cut it anymore when you won’t
provide food or lodging, and a round-trip ticket to anywhere costs at least
$500.)
Once the flight attendants had helped the four passengers
who had been assigned to the same two seats across the aisle from us resolve
their differences, our trip back to Cincinnati was relatively uneventful. Michael
spent his time writing, while Nancy continued reading Middlemarch so she’ll be ready for her book group
discussion next week. Jim and Kathy Stack met us at the airport and drove us
home. The weather this afternoon was partly cloudy, and warm enough that the
light jackets we had worn around New Zealand were sufficient—but
there are still heaps of dirty snow piled under the lampposts in local parking
lots, and tomorrow’s forecast calls for a “wintry
mix” of sleet and freezing rain. Welcome back to Cincinnati!
 |
| Puck's idea of a warm welcome |
We didn’t get much of a welcome from Puck, the
housecat we had left to the care of strangers. He didn’t
even bother to come up from the basement when we came in, let alone greet us at
the door, but we expect that he’ll try jumping in our laps as soon as
we take a moment to sit down.
We had started unpacking and doing laundry when we realized
that we had never eaten lunch, so since there was basically nothing in the
refrigerator except mayonnaise, soy sauce, and a bunch of withered kale, we
went to Panera for dinner and then to Kroger for groceries.
Other than the fact that, with another storm on the way,
there were more people at Kroger than is usual for a Saturday night, everything
seems abnormally normal. It’s hard to believe that the trip we had
been dreaming about for more than a decade is now over. It was a long wait,
especially for Michael, but now we’re glad that we waited until we had
the time to visit so many of the “wonders down under,”
and the means to enjoy them as comfortably and conveniently as possible. The
past month has been filled with absolutely amazing experiences.
People keep asking us: “What was your favorite part of the
trip?” Our son-in-law Jason suggested the best possible reply:
That we went!
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