I'm BACK!!!

After a late night at the airport, my Air New Zealand flight left at 11:59pm on Saturday. With "Papa Jake" serenading us with his ukelele, as he does with all arrivals and departures, we boarded the plane and after about an hour, they served dinner. Choice of lamb or lasagna, funny, huh? then Hancock was showing on the screen and then I attemped to get some shut eye. Luckily the seat next to me was empty so I could kind of lay down, two seats are kind of tight. Then, breakfast an hour before we landed, omelet or pancakes?
Then, had to claim my big backpack on the carousel before checking into United. The baggage check in guy claimed that my flight was listed as October 11 and not the 12th. I explained that my flight left at 11:59pm on the 11th, we crossed the international date line and I just arrived and the flight was today. So, since he couldn't check my big backpack, I had to endure the LONG line inside( 1 hour), had some difficulty in electronically checking myself in, and found out that the people behind the counter were not even United people, but just the baggage people. So, off to lane 6, which takes care of issues with real United staff. That was another hour and a half in this line, when I find out that I am taking a later flight that was scheduled to leave at 3:35pm, not the original 3:00pm, so I had to call Carol and Brian to let them know.
I then realized that my phone was low in power after not being used in 3 weeks, I promptly sat by an outlet and plugged my phone in as I snacked on some McDonald's as I waited and charged up. Another hour+ flight and I arrived in SFO and my sister Carol and her husband Brian came and picked me up. Since the 49er game just let out, we decided to take another route to not hit traffic.
Then, I finally arrived home and was greeted by the Melendez clan, but since we took longer than usual driving home and my nephew Jose had homework, they were already loaded in the car ready to drive back home. So, onto a home cooked meal thanks to my mom(Mmmmm!) and after few episodes of Survivor and ER, I crawled in to MY BED and slept like a baby.
Ahhh, nothing like your own bed after 3 weeks away from home.

Just finishing up some laundry and will be packing for the New York City and Washington D.C. tomorrow.

My sister Carol just dropped off some shiny new pennies and a roll of quarters to press for her while we are out and about. She has a great collection and loves to get more from all over. She showed me http://www.pennycollector.com/ and it actually shows all the locations of the penny press machines. You just punch in the city and it'll list them all. If you click on the location and click on the photo icon, you can actually see the images of the pressed pennies. Cool, huh?

Good to be home, but looking forward to new adventures in another city...