Going Home

Well, we've been home from our European vacation for almost a week now.   I am letting things sink into my memory bank before I write about my favorites, highlights, surprises, and dislikes.   Here is the last travel log of the trip:

The day after the wedding in Malcesine, Drew and I said goodbye to Tracey and David.

And hit the road.  Drew drove most of the 7 hours from northern Italy to central Germany, but it was on these kinds of roads

 

instead of the crazy narrow ones I had been driving on for the last week.  We made it to Esslingen where we would stay for the night to get the bikes packed up into their boxes and visit with our sister-in-law, Emily, and new niece, Charlotte.

Charlotte is a cutie that has loads of personality!

We were happy to see their friendly cats again too, and Pandora was happy to explore Drew's bag.

 

 We had a nice visit and got things packed up for the early morning and full day of travel.

The next day was that long, frustrating, stinky, painful day of travel after a big trip.  We took the train, including two transfers, up to the airport in Frankfurt.  Got there plenty early, which was a good thing as the airport is massive - the largest I have ever been in. It took forever just to find our check-in counter.  The flight was delayed, but finally departed and we were airborne.  Unfortunately, my airplane headphone jack didn't work so I couldn't watch movies, and the kid next to me stunk like B.O.  I suffered through it until Drew was chivalrous enough to trade with me.  I traded into a seat that had headphones, but the guy next to me was farting every two minutes!  It was a long nasty flight.  When we finally landed in Houston (the crabbiest, unhappiest airport workers I have ever met), we had just enough time to go through customs and catch the flight to SLC.  We got home to a gutted kitchen and hot, dusty house around 11:30 PM.