I hope you've enjoyed our journey over the past four weeks. Starting tomorrow I'll be posting two trips in 1997 that haven't been posted yet...I think you'll enjoy them...the first one in the spring to England and another in the fall to Germany. See you in tomorrow....
Jim and I were up and down most of the night. Jim is going for a walk and taking some of the luggage down early as we’d agreed to call each other at 8 am. I updated my computer this morning before leaving the hotel. About 8 am we got Barbara up and by 9 am we were loaded in the car and on our way to the airport. We got gasoline for the last time and headed into the area to leave the car. We loaded everything on a cart provided by the airport. Learned how to take these carts, which are about the size of a large grocery store cart up the escalator. Everyone does it and they even had an airport employee at the top to help us off. We each took our own up. Jim then took his down backwards but Barbara and I found the lift to go down in!
Jim accidentally left the car keys in his pocket…we found them in Dallas and mailed them back when we got home! Back in the airport, Jim and Barbara went to get the Value Added Tax cleared on Barbara’s bracelet. We stopped in the airport restaurant and Barbara brought us brunch. Then we went through German customs. Barbara went to find Swatch Watches in the duty free shops and I and Jim started into the waiting area.
Soon it was time to go to the gate...we went through security and everything was fine until they wouldn’t let me just turn on my computer to prove it wasn’t a bomb! They were okay with the camera after they took a picture of me with it. After I turned on the Computer on they still wanted to put it through the x-ray machine. I kept insisting “NO”. The head honcho said I had to go with him to a separate room. There they used paper towels to wipe the computer, then put the towels under glass and ran a machine over it. Then they vacuumed the computer and put the dust into another machine to check. After all that they sealed it into a plastic bag and said now they would allow it to be shipped in luggage or it still had to go through the x-ray machine. After arguing with three more people. It finally went through the machine! Fortunately, no damage was done apparently as everything appears to work fine. They were extremely strict with everyone coming into the area. All cameras and computers and everything had to be put through the machine and they hand x-rayed everyone individually.
Long trip home. Read magazines and watched the movie, An American President. The plane left Frankfurt, Germany about 1 pm, arrived in Dallas, Texas about 4:30 pm their time, we’d gained about six hours by this time so we’d had a about a 10 hour flight. Barbara went on to her flight to Orange County Airport which left on time. Jim and I had a delay of over an hour so didn’t leave until nearly 7:30 pm. We gained three more hours and arrived in LAX at 9 pm. A total of about eighteen hours from when we’d left Germany. Jennifer, Wendy and Mary, our daughters, were all three waiting for us when we’d arrived. The grandchildren were going to come until our flight had been delayed. It was really great to see them when we got off the plane. Jim drove home, he’d slept some on the plane.
Showed the girls some of his European driving styles when we needed to make some fast lane changes! We arrived home about 10:30 pm. Wendy went straight home and Jennifer and Mary stayed around for some stories and to see some of the things that we’d purchased. Got to bed about midnight. Already had two loads of wash done by the time we hit the hay! Great Trip! We have ten rolls of video tape and seventeen rolls of film. Barbara has another ten rolls. Should make a great album!
ENDING ODMETER ON CAR: 016475TOTAL KM TRAVELED IN 29 DAYS: 6,239 = 3,877 MILES
(1 KM = 1,000 METERS (3,280.8 FT) (1 MILE = 5,280 FT)
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