Home at Last

Thursday morning was the start of our long journey home from Madrid to Los Angeles.

A short night's sleep was interrupted by a 5:00 a.m. wake-up call. Just enough time to  take a quick shower, board the shuttle bus from our hotel to the airport in time to check-in, go through security, have breakfast and catch our 8:55 a.m. flight to London's Heathrow Airport.

Of course, our real first duty upon arriving at the airport was to officially weigh our two large suitcases to be sure that they were not over the 23 kilos weight limit per bag. The one bag holding my prize cow bell was exactly at 23.0 kilos while the other bag was only at 17.8 kilos. This afforded us the opportunity to make a last minute transfer of more objects, mostly Spanish fans, from our two carry-on bags into the underweight bag until it approached the magic 23 kilos mark. 

This made it even easier for us to wheel about on the rest of our trip once the two big bags were checked all the way to LAX.

Iberia was on time!

The first leg of our journey was this two hour and 20 minute flight to London. The flight was as smooth as could be expected and got us to Heathrow Airport on time giving us a one hour and 45 minute lay over before our final flight to Los Angeles.

Going Home 

I really like flying on British Air when doing the London to Los Angeles trip in either direction.

First, BA has yet to lose our luggage! This is a bit more amazing than it may sound to you unless you know a bit about BA's historically poor performance in this area.

Also, each seat has its own entertainment center so that each pasenger can decide what music, movies, TV shows, etc., they want to watch.

That may not sound like such a big deal but it makes the 11 hour and five minute flight go by a lot faster!

The Pacific Coast Highway

near Mugu Rock 

We enjoyed another good experience on BA but it did take us an hour to collect our bags and get through customs, with no one questioning the cow bell.

Once we cleared those hurdles, we were greeted by our friends Rod and Helen Fujita, who graciously picked us up at the airport to drive us home.

Since it was now about 4:30 p.m. and the freeways would be clogged at rush hour, so we opted for the scenic drive up the coast via Highway 1, the PCH.

It was still a slow drive but much prettier to say the least.

Meeting Jacob for the first time

We had only been home for about ten minutes when Mike and Vanessa pulled up with our four month old grandson Jacob, who I had yet to meet.

He is such a cute little guy! A got a strange vibration from him that someday he might be a doctor. I don't know why, I just did.

We had to celebrate meeting Jacob in some appropriate fashion.

Jacob at Camarillo Cronies

We got into our two cars and drove over to our local sports bar for dinner. It was Jacob's first visit to Cronies in Camarillo although he has been to Cronies' Newbury Park location before.

All of the decorations and TV screens were an exciting assault on Jacob's senses it turned out.

We are so blessed to have two wonderful grandsons! Jacob's cousin Kevin will join us next weekend from Las Vegas when Andy and Jenn drive out for the weekend to take part in Jacob's baptism.

It is good to be back with our family and friends.

Reading is FUNdamental

Airplane Read from Zürich 

I knew that I would have a lot of time on my hands when we left Zürich for Madrid on the 12th, so I searched the Zürich Airport's bookstore for a suitable English language book that was expensive.

I say expensive because I still had some Swiss Francs that I needed to get rid of as I saw no immediate advantage in taking these Francs home with me.

The book's cover proudly proclaimed that Pure won the 2011 Costa Book of the Year award which is one of the United Kingdom's most prestigious literary prizes. That caught my attention, so I purchased it and dug right in while waiting for my flight to Madrid.

I would rank this book as the dullest tome I've read in the last five years.

What book came in second to this one?

Just around the corner

The London Olympic Games start on July 27th.

During our layover in London, we had ample time to do a little shopping at the airport's Olympic shop.

I bought a T-shirt and the official Programme of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

This 196 page program is chock full of facts, pictures and stories about the the Olympics and the Olympians.

This is the third time that London has hosted the Summer Olympics. This makes London the only city to have hosted them more than twice.

London has previously hosted the IV Olympiad in 1908 and the XIV Olympiad in 1948.

Approximately 14,000 athletes representing 205 countries are expected to compete in London's XXX Olympiad.

In the program's The Facts section, it is stated that London's Olympic Committee has purchased 150,000 condoms to give to the 14,000 athletes.

That's an average of about 11 condoms for each athlete for the 17 days of the Olympics. A new Olympic event perhaps?

XXX Olympiad indeed!

The competitive spirit

of Wilt Chamberlain lives on!