Home again!

When last we talked I was in the airport in Hong Kong. Since then, I've made it all the way home. Here's a recap of the rest of the trip and the recovery so far.

The hop over the Pacific wasn't too bad. I think I got about 5 or 6 hours sleep from Hong Kong to Vancouver. It wasn't great sleep since my head kept falling down and waking me up. I was doing the dead man on a horse sleep.

The plane landed in Vancouver to refuel and we had to deplane and take all our stuff with us. Canada wanted to inspect the plane as it came into the country and any personal belongings left on the plane was going to get thrown out. Funny thing is that we landed in Vancouver before we took off from Hong Kong. We left Hong Kong at 12:15 AM on 9/20 and landed in Vancouver around 9:15 PM on 9/19.

We waited in Vancouver over an hour before we got back on the plane and headed to JFK. That flight was fine. It was only 5 hours. Better than the 12 over the Pacific. I only slept about an hour on this flight. We landed in JFK around 7 AM on 9/20. Had no trouble clearing customs and re-checking my bag for the flight to RDU. I got a cup of coffee from Starbucks to try and stay awake.

Our next flight was scheduled to leave at noon, but we looked at the board on our way to the gate and noticed there was a flight heading to RDU that left at 8:30. We decided to hoof it to the gate and see if we could get on that flight to get home earlier. This meant I had to sacrifice the ginormous coffee I bought because I couldn't gulp it down in time to get through security. It was a necessary sacrifice!

We were able to hop on the earlier flight to RDU but there was no way our baggage was going to make it. But getting home earlier was well worth not getting my bag. I've got plenty of clothes at the house. I didn't want to sit in the airport for 5 more hours if I didn't have to! I called Liz and told her I was getting an earlier flight that was going to come in around 10 AM instead of 1:45 PM.

The flight to RDU was uneventful. Except I was very anxious to land and finally be home! I got a text from Liz when I landed that Johnny was asleep in the car and I should come out after I landed. We decided to hang around baggage claim just to make sure our bags wouldn't make it. Sure enough, just like the dude at the gate in JFK had said, our bags weren't there. We talked to somebody in the baggage claim area to see if we had to come back that afternoon or if the bags would be pulled and we could claim them later. She said the bags would be pulled and we could come back later or even the next day. By this time Johnny was awake so he and Liz came into the baggage claim area. It was awesome to see them again!

We got back to the house around 11:30 Sunday morning and I had a shower. For the first time in over 2 days. I was grungy. A shower felt awesome! Then we went to Smithfields and I got a BBQ platter. Yeah, pork! You know, I don't eat that much pork, but when you're in a majority Muslim country and you can't hardly find pork, I find that I start to crave it!

Sunday afternoon I took a nap when Johnny did around 1 PM. And I fell dead asleep. Liz came in at 3:00 to wake me up and I did not want to wake up. I felt groggy all afternoon. Liz, Johnny, and I walked down to the park in downtown Fuquay and had a picnic Sunday evening. That was really cool. Instead of all the toys we brought, Johnny ended up playing with the plates we were going to eat on! He had a pretty good time and we feed him some green beans while we were there. We came back to the house and I gave Johnny a bath and a little bottle and put him to bed. I called my parents and talked to them for a while and then it was about 7:30 or 7:45. I crashed and slept hard. Until about 3:00 AM. Then I slept fitfully the rest of the night.

Monday I stayed home from work to recover from the trip. I kept Johnny home with me and we had a good time. I got to see all the new tricks he learned while I was away. He learned to sit up on his own, pull himself up, and has begun to crawl. These developmental spurts are amazing. I took a nap when Johnny took his afternoon nap. That may have been a mistake because I feel asleep hard again. I was pretty groggy the rest of the afternoon.

To keep myself awake I went to play softball last night. I don't know if you can call what I did "playing" softball. I felt like I was in a fog bank out in the field. I missed a ball down the left field line that turned into a homerun for other team. I also misplayed a high fly ball that went off the fence. I should have had enough time to get back and catch the ball, but I couldn't find the fence and turned myself around. Oh well. I did hit the ball OK. Funny how the ying and yang of hitting and fielding work. At least for me anyway. It's rare that I have both a good game in the field and a good game hitting. Usually one is better than the other and they even out.

After the game I ran some errands for Liz and went to the airport to pick up my bag. By the time I got home it was after 10 PM. I was falling asleep driving around so I had to stop and buy a Mountain Dew before I got home. I showered and got ready for bed and didn't get to sleep until almost 11 PM. I slept good until about 4:00 and then I woke up and had trouble going back to sleep.

Today has been interesting at work. I've got a whole lot of work I need to do, but I'm having trouble staying focused. One of the reasons for this blog post! I hit the wall around 3:30 and have been struggling to stay awake ever since. I'm definitely going to bed earlier than 11 PM tonight!