I took a few more window pictures as well as a picture of the beautiful medallion on the ceiling.
We checked out and waited for our taxi to arrive. There was this cool bike parked in the corner of the lobby. Ambience for sure, and perfect for the photography enthusiast like me.
Our taxi driver was an odd driver as he constantly pushed on the accelerator so that I felt like I was in a constant jolting motion. Chris said it was the way that many Asian people drove, believing somehow that it saved on gas. I'm not usually prone to carsickness, but if I had to put up with that driving too much longer, I might have headed in that direction.
Fortunately we arrived at the airport. The signage there wasn't great. So great to have Chris' navigation skills. When I pulled out my passport even before checking in, my drivers license must have been in the folds of my passport and fell to the floor. I didn't even realize it until the agent tapped me on the shoulder to hand it to me. Whew. We checked our luggage and started toward our gate. But first Immigration. The lines were not well marked, so we got in the line that the agent directed us to for a US-bound flight. It wasn't until 15 minutes later that we saw that there was a Premium line. We scanned through to that line and were on our way much faster. The Premium line had one Immigration agent for less than ten people, while two other agents were trying to handle an ever-growing line of hundreds.
This airport had futuristic looking covered walkways. That was one of the things Chris remembered from his first trip here.
From Immigration, we went to security, each time showing our boarding pass and passport. They were being extra cautious every step of the way. We finally reached our gate with a little time to spare. We were grateful that we had given ourselves enough time this morning.
As we waited in the Group #1 boarding line, we heard, "Would Mr. and Mrs. Kline please check in?" Chris and I looked at each other and shrugged. The agents escorted us to the front of the line and greeted us with, "You are the only Global Services passengers on this flight," and then allowed us to board first once boarding began.
We settled in to our seats. And for the next 7 1/2 hours I watched movies and typed, and typed more while watching movies: Mother's Day, Jungle Book, Mamma Mia! Chris was surprised that I spent so much time on the typing. I was just glad that I was getting it done before arriving home. I will have so much other stuff to catch up on and pictures to go through. Chris worked the whole time on the flight as well trying to catch up on creating slides for his upcoming CA World presentations.
Our flight arrived 1 hour and 12 minutes early! This was my first re entry using Global Entry and it was pretty slick. We didn't have to declare anything and were through Immigration in no time. Sadly, the agent did not say, "Welcome home." I was a tad disappointed.
We picked up our luggage from this flight and checked it in a short distance later for our domestic flight. Since we had so much time to wait before our next flight, we hung out in the United Club Lounge for well over two hours. Too bad we couldn't have found an earlier flight home. The time passed quickly enough and we were soon on our way to C Terminal for our flight from Washington DC to Denver. And more typing.
We arrived home around 8:15 pm. Amy and Kristen were happy to greet us. Kristen came out to the car before I even got out and hugged me and started to cry. This girl is and always will be a Mama's girl. I don't know how I am ever going to get her to leave the house for college! Misha was already in bed sleeping. Don't mess with a tired girl and her bedtime.
So good to be home. So good to sleep in my own bed. So good.
I saw this cool quote earlier in the day:
We must take adventures to know where we truly belong.
Anonymous
Home.