I finally made it home early this afternoon. Should I feel bad that it was at the expense of others that those of us on our flight made it home? What they finally did to get our flight on the way was to switch aircraft with another flight that was scheduled. I just checked and that flight was delayed nine hours. They did get our original aircraft fixed as it does show in the flight details that it was used on the later flight. We did find out more details about the mechanical failure. There was a hydraulic leak that they could not find the source for. I am thankful that we flew on a safe aircraft and am glad that they did not attempt a flight with a plane that had an unidentified problem.

Pink Roses near the Pool of Siloam.

The flight home was fairly uneventful once we were in the air. We finally took off at 12:01 A.M. on Monday morning, 36.5 hours later than originally scheduled. I slept for a good portion of the 12 hour flight. I tried to watch a movie and kept falling asleep, so finally gave up and let myself sleep.

I was also watching our arrival time in Newark, as I was scheduled for a 5:59 A.M. flight from there to SFO. We finally landed at 5:04 A.M. and I hurried through immigration, baggage claim, customs and security. I arrived at the gate just in time to be one of the last passengers to board a jam packed flight with no room for carry on bags. Luckily my bags were small enough that I could put one under the seat in front of me and my small backpack made it into the overhead in a small space in front of someone’s over large carry on that had to be put in sideways. Seriously, I am not sure how they ever let them bring it on board. Again, I slept for about half the flight and simply relaxed for the rest of the six hour flight. I even played some Angry Birds on my iPad and also reviewed some of my pictures from the trip.

We landed on time at SFO and I went down to the baggage claim to wait for my bag. After watching bags circle for 20 minutes I decided to go to the bag check kiosk to see where my bag was. The kiosk gave the last location as Newark, so I got in line to talk to an agent. I soon found out that my bag was on the next flight that would arrive in about 45 minutes. Instead of going through all the paperwork to have the bag delivered to me, I decided to wait for it to arrive. I would have much rather have had an extra hour in Newark between flights and have my bag be on the same plane, but in the end I am just glad that I had my bag to take home with me so I could get started on laundry.

After my bag arrived I walked to the BART station and board the train for Dublin/Pleasanton.  My friend Linda picked me up and gave me a ride to my car. I debated on stopping for lunch at Wendy’s, but finally decided just to head for home. After a stop at the grocery store for staples such as bread and milk, I finally made it home. I have spent the afternoon getting caught up on several things as well as getting two loads of laundry started. I also went to the library to pick up some books that I had requested. I am thankful for their new late night Monday hours.

Now to stay up for about another hour so that I can get a good night of sleep and be back on schedule tomorrow. I am not looking forward to the commute in the morning. It is always nice to have two weeks of no driving and letting someone else worry about the traffic.

Camel at Samaria

At least I am not commuting on a camel. This was taken when we visited Samaria while on the way to Jerusalem from Tiberias.

Now to sort through the more than 5,000 pictures that I took on the trip. What kind of pictures would you like to see? Would you like more from any specific place that we visited? I also have plenty of flower pictures like the pink roses above.

Glad to be home,

Steven