Back home

We are back home after a wearing trip reversing our route that we took to get to New Zealand.  For some reason it was a much more stressful trip than our outward bound journey.  The first leg of our flight was canceled so we had to change planes in Wellington to get to Auckland and our trans-Pacific flight.  For some reason the plane over the ocean seemed more uncomfortable than on our westbound trip and we slept very little.


We rested for a few days in San Francisco before we boarded a 6 am flight to Chicago.  Had to get up early to make that one!  Then we had a 3-hour wait in ORD to catch out Madison flight.  


Our inbound flight unloaded us at Gate C3 and the screens in O'Hare showed our next flight departing at Gate F16.  If you are familiar with the layout of O'Hare you'd know that is lengthy hike, maybe about half the distance to Midway.  It took us about 20 minutes, schlepping our carry-on bags, in which, to avoid our checked luggage being overweight, we had loaded all the heavy items we were bringing back: books, shoes and, I think, an anvil.  


The seats at gate F16 were all full so we sat across the walkway at Gate F17, where we could keep an eye on the gate.  We got up a couple of times to get an ice cream and, later, a coffee.  I glanced at the board to see if there might be any other United flights to Madison as there was one around 1:30 pm which would have been nice to be on.  


At about 2:40 pm we walked over to F16 and no one was there!  I dashed over the the departures board and was shocked to see the departure gate for our flight was now Gate C5! Dunnerwetter, nei!  We were suddenly faced with the walk from Hell and had only 20 minutes before our plane 's departure.  We had a short wasteful conversation with the United personnel at F16, asked them to contact our departing flight and let them know we were coming and rushed away through the halls of O'Hare toward C5.  We consolidated the baggage so I could pull the wheeled case with my satchel on top and Lolly hurried along a few step behind me her knees suffering every step.


Miraculously we arrived with six minutes to spare, or so I thought.  Everyone was boarded and the agent was shuffling through some papers. Handing him our boarding passes, we told him we were on that flight and had been waiting at F16 for three hours for it and...


"The door's already closed," he said calmly.  "They can't open it again"


"What?" I thought.  "Has it been welded shut?"


"What about our luggage?"


It's on the flight to Madison."


After some heated words and his repeated responses of "closed" and can't open" and us standing there looking at our airplane through the window, he had checked later flights (all full) and we finally ended up with bus tickets to Madison.  He reassured us our luggage would be at MSN and we struck out for the bus depot (while our airplane sat outside the window). 


The bus depot was closer than Gate F16 so that was a small relief for us and the bus was scheduled to leave at 4 pm.  But the bus was not destined for the Madison airport.  It was scheduled to stop in Janesville then some Park 'n' Ride lot in Madison with a final destination of the Memorial Union on the UW campus at 7 pm!
 Now the back story of this adventure is that Laura was on her way from Mineral Point to pick us up at the Madison airport. We had already triggered her trip while were quietly relaxing at gate F16.  We called her and informed her of our fiasco.  She was not quite to Verona so she turned around and went back home as she did not want to sit around in Madison for three hours.


We sat in the bus depot for awhile, but a young Chinese man was loudly blabbing on his cellphone and Lolly found it so irritating she asked that we wait outside for the bus. Although I can usually block outside conversations out, I had to admit it was irritating.  Spanish sounds lyrically romantic; French, somehow sexual; German, instructive.  Even Japanese sounds somehow pleasantly exotic (Sayanora).  But Chinese is utterly ugly, sounding like chickens being strangled.


Our bus finally arrived and it filled quickly, mostly with Chinese.  I thought we were bound for Shanghai, but, no, these Chinese were all bound for the University of Wisconsin.  One of the few things we export to China is education.  A young Indian couple with a small and very quiet baby sat in front of us and the seat directly behind Lolly was filled by -Guess who?- the guy with the cell phone!  The bus driver informed the passengers of our itinerary and asked that people with cell phones be brief in any calls and not to put them on speaker phone.  Then we were off. More or less.  Our Asian travelling companion was very much on!  He choked and strangled chickens and other beasts for 45 minutes -just beyond Beloit.  Several times he paused for a long time and I thought maybe he had choked himself talking so much, but then he would revive and go on again in full force.


The bus trip was an uneventful, overly long ride.  We arrived at the Memorial union just before seven and connected with Laura several minutes later.  Then we had to back track to get to the city's airport.  At the airport our baggage or anyone from united was nowhere to be seen.  By a most fortunate turn of events, a United flight had just arrived and people were milling around the luggage carousel.  The employee behind the screen loading the bags onto the carousel eventually appeared and Lolly was on him like a hawk.  She retrieved our bags from the secured baggage room and we were finally on our way to Mineral Point.


After collapsing in our bed at Laura's house, we arose mid-morning on Sunday to travel to Galena to recover our dog.  Nancy and Lary were  almost reluctant to give him up.  Loki had exercised every dog that came there and had gone to bed each evening at 6:30 sharp.  But he was excited to see us, jumping shoulder high and wiggling with excitement when we came in the door.  When it came time to leave he laid down sadly on a doggie bed, his legs trembling.  When I said, "Let's go!", he dashed out the door and flew down the stairs on his way to the car.


We got back to Laura's in the late afternoon, and decided to rest there another night before making the final leg of our journey.  A bad choice.  The weather deteriorated overnight and we were faced with sub-zero temperatures and blowing snow as we got on the road in the morning.  We cautiously picked our way along the frozen road and decided to call a friend in Madison to see if we could find sanctuary at her place for the balance of the day.  We spent the balance of the day there and the next morning the roads were not treacherous so we drove the remaining 150 miles home with sunshine brightening our day the last half of the trip.


In all it took us seven days to get back home, arriving exhausted.  Our heads were filled with so many things now including the sadness of leaving family in New Zealand and the joy of being back home.  I guess all trips start with the excitement of impending adventure and end with the bittersweetness of  days lost to memory and the pleasure of homecoming.