March 21: Headed Home

 

8,892 miles after casting off the lines from the pier in San Diego, Nieuw Amsterdam docked there again at 7:00 AM.

Good morning, San Diego!

Our disembarkation time was 9:00, and our disembarkation color was black; an appropriate color for our return to reality.

In the terminal, Immigration was a quick scan of our faces by an ICE agent. There were eight agents on duty despite the shutdown. We located our bags and made our way through Customs nonstop. 

Outside, we turned our big bags over to Drex from LuggageForward. We anticipate being reunited with them by April 02, when they appear at our doorstep in Marion.

With each of us now having just a carry-on and a backpack, we got to the end of a long line and shuffled forward to board a transfer bus for the short ride to the airport. The line appeared to be endless. We were underestimating the system. They boarded multiple buses simultaneously at the terminal. They also did not wait until a bus was full to pull out. By 10:00, we were departing the pier for the airport, sharing our JetBlue bus with Air Canada and Southwest travelers.

There has been a lot in the news about long security lines at airports due to the lack of funding for TSA agents. With TSA Pre✓, it took us about 5 minutes. The general line was much longer, but seemed to be moving steadily.

We were moving towards our gate at 10:30.

From our disembarkation notice through Immigration, baggage collection, Customs, a significant detour from dropping off our shipped bags, shuffling forward in the bus line, getting to the airport, and clearing security took a total of 1 hour and 35 minutes, leaving us a comfortable 90 minutes before our flight began to board.

Our JetBlue flight took off 20 minutes late and, after a 5-hour flight, landed on time at 9:22 PM.

Having only carry-on luggage, we headed straight for our Bizarro Transportation car. 

At the end of traveling all day, and being the last leg of our trip, the ride from the airport to our home always seems to take longer than it actually does, especially after dark.

We arrived home at 11:00, feeling better than we would have at that hour had it not been for springing forward three hours flying east.

The last potential hurdle was getting into the house. 

We have become so electronic that I usually use my phone to open the garage door as we pull into the driveway, but with the internet still down, would the keypad work, or would we have to use a (shudder) actual house key kept in an outdoor lockbox? 

The keypad worked. 

We are back in our home.

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I intend to write an epilogue in a week or so if there is sufficient content for one. Stay tuned, or not.