02-25/29-2020: Heading Home

Our last full day with Lou in Australia was a bittersweet one. None of us can believe that nearly 7 weeks has passed, although we certainly have covered a lot of ground. For this last day, we asked for a visit to a beach for a final dip in the ocean.

We started the day by writing out some thank you cards. Everyone has been so wonderful to us. We wanted to let everyone know how much our visit with them meant to us. We then joined Lou for a visit to a cafe down the road, He typically has a morning cappuccino at the cafe, and so he’s starting to slide back in to a normal routine. While he wasn’t looking, I popped into the cafe and purchased a gift card for him so that while he’s having his morning cappuccino for a couple of weeks he’ll think of us. We, too, will picture Lou with Banjo sitting on the veranda of the cafe sipping his cappuccino.

We then went for a walk along Ettalong Beach. What a beautiful day it was! And Ettalong provides wonderful views of Brisbane Water and Broken Bay.

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After lunch, we headed to Copacabana Beach for a swim, one of our favorites.

The surf was just right, enough for jumping waves, but no crunchers. Since this beach is a no dog beach, Lou and Banjo sat on a bench at the top of the dune watching the goings on. After I had my fill of the ocean, I went up and took charge of Banjo so Lou could enjoy the water. Unfortunately, he neglected to empty his pockets before getting wet. Yep, his phone was in his pocket. I feel terrible about that accident. We tried the phone in a bag of rice trick when we got home, but to no avail. We’ll head to a phone store in the morning.

Our last night Lou wanted to take us out to dinner. His first choice was not open Tuesday, so he picked the Reef Restaurant, a lovely ocean-side upscale restaurant. It has a marvelous view and it was really nice to see twilight approaching. Our meals were very good and we had good conversation about all that we have done during our visit.

Wednesday, Feb. 26th, was departure day. We packed in the early part of the morning. None of us wanted to face leaving. Lou went to church for Ash Wednesday service. When he returned, I went with him to Woy Woy to a phone store. Mobi is a one-off storefront where we went for a new glass protector and case for Lou’s phone a couple of weeks ago. We started there since I thought the guy there knew his stuff. He had the back of Lou’s iPhone off in about 15 seconds and we all could easily tell there was no saving it. The guy tried selling Lou a used iPhone XR for $800 (regularly about $1,200). I suggested to Lou that we check out Telstra, his mobile carrier, before making any decisions. The clerk there tried to sell us an iPhone 7 for $479, but it was only 32GB. She then went to an iPhone 6, 32GB, for $459. We were going to do that, but I went back to the other place and told him the deal at Telstra. He said he could get an iPhone 6, 64GB, for $295. That’s what Lou decided to buy, but it wouldn’t be available until tomorrow. Lou without his phone is like a fish out of water. He learned the next day that it was a used iPhone 6 he bought, but I think that the $295 price is a good one even for a used phone. So Lou will be moving into his new phone over the next few days. He will be so relieved.

By the time we got back to the house, it was getting close to our departure time to the Sydney airport. I think we were all silent for about an hour as we finished packing and loading the bags and stuff into the car. Lou’s brother Ray was meeting us at a place on the way to the airport. We picked him up and proceeded to the airport. We didn’t have any surprises getting our bags checked in. After that, we found a cafe for a drink and sat and chatted with Ray and Lou (and Margaret via phone) until it was time for us to head to security.

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It was a very teary goodbye, for sure. We’ve had such a good time and Lou has been an absolute joy to be with. He really went above and beyond the call of duty taking care of us and getting us to the places that were important for us to go. Lou, we can’t thank you enough for your wonderful hospitality and love. We love you lots!

Our flight to Honolulu was uneventful, except that neither of us slept at all during the flight. I thought with a 7:30 p.m. departure and flying 10 hours overnight would cause us to sleep, but it wasn’t to be had. And we crossed the International Date Line on the way to Hawaii so we got to relive Wednesday. We arrived in Honolulu about 8:00 a.m. on the 26th (about 12 hours before we left Sydney). Of course it was too early to check into our hotel, so we sat in the Starbuck’s in the lobby until 1:00. The hotel upgraded our room to a suite, which was nice. We had an ocean view room.

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For dinner we walked over to the Tropics Bar at the Hilton Villages Resort where we stayed on the way to Australia. It was nice to walk around a bit after the long flight, but there were some brief showers and we had to duck for cover a couple of times.

The next leg of the journey was Honolulu to San Diego. Nothing much to report for that flight, except that paying a little extra for Comfort+ seating really is worth it. A little extra space helps to be more comfortable when enduring long flights.

We arrived in San Diego at about 9:30 p.m. We stayed in the same Hampton near the airport as before, which provides shuttle service to and from the airport. It was a short stay because we were on the 5:30 a.m. shuttle back to the airport the next morning.

The flight from San Diego to Detroit was okay. The only problem was that our in-flight entertainment systems in the Comfort+ section were not working. There were many disgruntled people who, having paid extra for the Comfort+, couldn’t watch any TV or movies. Once we arrived in Detroit, it was no big surprise to me that our connecting flight to Binghamton was delayed. Flights from DTW to BGM are frequently delayed or canceled. After several stories from the gate agent as to status, we finally got on an airplane 3 hours later and arrived in Binghamton at about 7:20 p.m. Our wonderful friend Eve was there to meet us and drive us home. Our equally wonderful friends Reva and JoAnn sent a care package with Eve containing everything we needed for breakfast in the morning and homemade chicken soup for dinner. How nice to have such great friends!

So our Australia adventure has come to an end and we are back home. It was a fabulous trip and we enjoyed every part of it, especially our time with Lou. We all talked about our next get together, which I hope will be relatively soon, either Lou coming to America or us returning to Australia. Whichever way that happens, we’re looking forward to it. For now, it’s great being back at home. There wasn’t much snow on the ground and the driveway was clear, a very nice thing.

Thanks to all our family in Australia for a wonderful visit. We’re sending love, gratitude, and good wishes to you all. Hopefully we’ll be seeing you again in the not too distant future.

And thanks to you who have followed along with us by reading this blog. I appreciate your interest, and especially your comments. This blogging business does take a lot of work, so I’m happy to know that it is being read and commented on. Thanks!

Christine and I will be off on another adventure in late April, so stay tuned.