The Flight(s) home, and two days in Texas

Dear friends and loved ones:

I arrived at Miami International Airport on Monday evening, March 5th, at 11:30 p.m. By midnight I had wound my way from the LAN Airlines arrival gate through that huge, spread-out, and currently under re-construction airport, finally making my way to and through Immigration and Customs. With an international arrival, even with a connecting flight, you have to receive your bag, go through Customs, and then re-enter your bag into the systems through security. Of course, after midnight, there are no open ticket counters and nobody to receive bags until the next day.

No matter when I returned from Ecuador, I was going to face this problem. You arrive at midnight, get your bags outside of security, and the next plane out is close to 7 a.m. I figured I had to wait until 4 or 5 a.m. for anybody to be there to receive the bags. My task now was to find a place to sit down and try to relax while I counted down the hours.

I found an area near the American Airlines counters with benches of armed chairs which had been pushed up-close, enabling one to sit in one chair and put one's feel in the other chair, directly in front of you. I gathered my bags close at hand, using my backpack to weave the bags together on the off cance that I would fall asleep. Then I ensconsed myself in a seat with my feet before me, listening to the repeating series of announcements (every 15 minutes) on the loud speaker: the Mayor and members of the County Commission welcoming me to Miami and The Beaches; The requirement to smoke outside in designated areas; the convenience of the newly remodeled airport that I can look forward to some time in the future; the convenience of using a quart-sized, zip-log bag for all liquid carry-ons (no more than 3 ounces, each); the time (with a loud gong!); the need for my vigilance with regards to watching my bags; and a few others that have, luckily, slipped my mind.

I came up with the strategy to cover-up the repeating, blaring announcements. I say blaring because the volume on the sound system had been adjusted to overcome the loud noise in a crowded, busy airport. After midnight, with hardly anybody around, the system is way too loud. My strategy was to listen to Brahms on my iPod and read a book. It somewhat worked, as I was able to hear all of the first three symphonies and read several chapters of my book. Then, exhausted, I tried to get comfortable enough to sleep for a couple of house. I rested my hips atop my luggage, both for the support and on the assumption that anybody trying to gain access to bags that were under me would probably wake me up.

I think I slept for about 20 minutes. Then came the large, riding-lawn-mower-sized floor cleaning, waxing and buffing machines. They pulled up beside me and parked, leaving the "beep, beep, beep" and flashing yellow strobe light running while the drivers of the two machines chatted with each other. A large assortment of other airport maintenance and cleaning staff gathered around the still-running machines, and they certainly had a loud and engaging conversatio. It wasn't until around four a.m. that the party broke-up, as TSA staff started to arrive for their day's work and airline personnel started to arrive and patronise the just-opening Starbucks.

I got up, re-arranged my bags for moving, and wandered off in search of a bathroom and then a walk.

By 4:45 a.m. a ticket counter opened up. I popped in line to check my bags, and by 5:05 a.m. I was on my way to security. Because of my stomach problems I had been afraid of eating, having not eaten anything since breakfast on Monday morning. I decided to forgo coffee or anything to eat and trudged on to my gate. There I sat until 6:15 a.m., listing to CNN Headline News blaring on a television across the terminal. It was the first English language news I had heard in two months, and I couldn't help but sit in rapt attention, even across the bredth of the terminal.

I was crammed into a tight window-seat for the 4 hour flight to Texas. I was terribly uncomfortabe the whole flight. My preference is always to sit on the aisle, where I have the illusion of not being so closed-in and trapped. Still, I often had to do relaxation exercises to keep myself calm and relaxed. Airplane seats are not built to help big, tall people sit comfortable.

My seat-mates were a father and son from Ecuador who were traveling to visit family in the Pacific Northwest. I had seen them on my LAN Airlines flight to Miami. We chatted a bit in Spanish, and I helped them understand where they would need to go in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport to help them make their flight. Also, on the flight from Ecuador to Miami my seat-mate had been a woman from Chile. I recognized her accent immediately, which made me very happy. As is my custom on airplanes, I only chatted as little as necessary. That often surprises my friends, as extroverted and chatty as I am. On airplanes, though, I prefer to keep to myself and not engage in conversation.

We arrived about 10 minutes early, and by 9:05 I had my bags and was standing outside of the airport, waiting for my father. He found me quickly enough, and we were very glad, indeed, to see each other. Even though I had no second thoughts about my early return from South America, the look in my father's eyes and in his whole body language, along with my own feelings of sheer joy, confirmed that I had made the right decision.

He asked me to drive, and we headed off in search of a breakfast restaurant on the road between the airport and Denton. We found a good place to eat in Lewisville. By 10:30 a.m. we were back in Dad's house, and I was sorting through things and doing laundry. My stomach was still giving me a lot of trouble, so I called the office of Dad's doctor to make an appointment. I was able to get an appointment for Wednesday morning, the next day.

That afternoon we went to an Apple Store and I purchased a new MacBook Pro computer, to replace the computer I had fried on day number 2 in South America. I had been planning on buying a new computer this year, having budgeted for it. My plan had been to buy it in May. It just didn't make sense to go through the hassle and expense of repairing the old computer when I was going to replace it in a few months anyway. Luckily for me, I had backed-up just about everything to a hard drive in Ann Arbor before I left the country. When I get home at the end of the month, I should be able to migrate all of that to the Mac.

On the way home from the Apple Store we stopped by Marie's house -- Dad's girlfriend. It was an unannounced visit, but she welcomed us gladly and warmly. We had a delightful visit. Then I dropped dad at the church where he joined a group of men who were serving as waiters at a banquet of his church's United Methodist Women group. Marie was so funny. As we left her house to go to the church, she said, "Now, Chester, remember. You goal is to get the food on the table, not on anybody's lap!" We all laughed a lot, especially my father.

Tuesday I kept my doctor's appointment. Scott sent me for blood work, and, uh... other tests. He also gave me an antibiotic -- my third antibiotic, and fourth medicine, to try to knock-out this bug. So far, any time I eat anything, I've got problems. Thank heavens, there isn't any other problem -- no nausea, dizziness, weakness, etc. Only the one, MAJOR problem. So I am hopeful that the medicine will knock it out this time. if not, well, then we'll move on to the next attempted solution.

Dad and I have decided to head to Knoxville for the weekend. My sister and brother-in-law are free all this weekend, and have a lot of time open at the beginning of the week. So, Dad has serviced the van and we'll pack this morning. Then, off to Knoxville. I asked the doctor about the wisdom about heading out of town, and he said that the cultures would take several days before he knew anything definative. If I should have problems still, the next treatment likely won't be able to start until mid-week next week, anyway. So -- off we go!

I thank you for all of the supportive and affirming notes I have received since my post about leaving Ecuador. I also thank you for the blessings of your love, care and prayers. I sure continue to need them! How I long to be well again!

Take care. I will continue to reflect and write about my thoughts and experiences in this blog. So far, I've not had much time to put my trip into perspective.


Again, many thanks. Know that I love and appreciate you dearly.

Grace and peace,
-- Bill