Saturday, January 4 2014 - The End

And so it ends.  An absolutely fantastic trip concludes.

Staying up so late the night before meant we needed to pack this morning, so we had to scuttle plans for breakfast.  So we packed, and had coffee, then headed to the Sydney airport.

Helpful tip--even if you cannot print your tickets, check in online before you go.  We were able to stand in the online checkin line and it was MUCH shorter.

We breezed through and had plenty of time for a nice lunch, and made a valiant effort to spend the rest of our Australian cash.  We had our preferred seats in the back of the plane, plenty of room to stretch out.  14 (15?) hours and 3 or 4 (I lost track) movies later, we landed in Dallas Fort Worth.  Global Entry paid off and we whisked through passport control and customs...but you still have to wait for your luggage and go through security again for the domestic flight.

Our fabulous pals Randy and Bea were there waiting for us and drove us home on the slick roads.  It was a brutal shock to traipse down the hill to the house through snow in my flip flops.  That was cold darn it!

About blogging the trip

I'm not sure I'm crazy about this format.  I thought it would be easier than compiling a trip report for the travel site I participate in, and also writing emails to my family (who claim to actually like reading them) about the trip.

But, it was more difficult than I thought, mainly a time and access thing.  I only took my ipad and I found a lot of things difficult with blogspot on the ipad.  Loading pictures especially was a pain.  We didn't have internet every night, and even when we did we had such long days that a lot of times I was too beat to take the time to write.  Once someone suggested Blogger that helped as I could write offline and publish later.

But, as you can see, I ended up writing a ton of it AFTER I got home, and loading more pics.

What's next

I might post a few more miscellaneous things.  And now that this is done I will finish truly processing my photos.  When that's done I might come back and post a link.