Homeward Bound
Greetings to all.
Today, the weather did not favor outdoor activities; it rained heavily throughout the day.
We spent the morning after breakfast packing, then checkout out of the hotel. We had a couple of hours to kill before dropping Rebecca at the airport. She had a flight to go to Andrews AFB, while Xavier and I had a direct flight to Denver several hours later.
We had hoped to hike/walk one of the local preserve areas, but it was too wet and rainy for that. Instead, we found the airport, then found a place to eat lunch. After lunch, we dropped Rebecca off, then waited for her to call us. She was going to check out the USO in the airport and report if it was kid-friendly.
We got the call, and it was kid-friendly. It even had Lego to build. However, sitting there for for six hours with an under-exercised four year-old did not sound appealing. I Googled for indoor play areas and found one thirty minutes away.
Xavier played and got much of his running around done over the next hour and a half. Then we headed back to the airport. After returning the rental car, we found the check-in, thinking to get our checked luggage taken care of. The check in stations were closed, opening only two hours before the flight, leaving us an with hour and a half to kill.
We spent that in the USO. Xavier loved it there, especially upon finding the Lego. He build an airport and then added a USO room to his airport. He explored the many other toys as well, then we left to check in.
Pensacola Airport is a small airport. We checkout our bags, got through security and found our gate in less than twenty minutes. Once past security, we found a vendor and bought dinner. We ate while watching planes get serviced, land and take off.
Xavier held up well, even sleeping a while on the three and a half hour maiden voyage of Frontier Airline's service between Pensacola and Denver.
We walked in the door of our house just after 11:30 PM and Xavier was in bed just after midnight. I planned that he would get up and go to school in a few hours, leaving me the day to rest up and do nothing.
He woke up at 8:30. No time to make it to school. I did not get the nap I planned on and greatly needed, but we did find things to do. We ended the day returning to the airport to pick Rebecca up; she was able to get all she needed done at Andrews AFB in just a few hours.
At last, after eight weeks, the family is together again and home!