California Dreaming - There's No Place Like Home

Last day of California trip, well of California anyway...

On Monday morning, Meri and I got up early!!  She wanted to get a hike in before we headed to the airport. We went to the park that had the waterfall and found this.

 We also found another car with hikers waiting to go in.  They gave up waiting after we all sat in our cars for a while and Meri and I climbed through the gate.  We found a map of the park and routed our way to the waterfall.

The cacti were pretty cool!  Look Maddy!  Succulents!

Along the way, the waterfall must have had some wash outs because some of the path was gone and there were just rocks to climb over.  We did find a pretty snifty bridge that reminded Meri of both bridge scenes of the tv series Harpers Island.  DON'T JUMP!!  

The hills of the gorge we were hiking through butted up to some California's back yards and we only know this because we took a wrong turn trying to find the opening of the park.  If we yelled enough, I'm sure some of the neighbors would throw old vegetables at us from above...  

We found the waterfall after 45 minutes of hiking.

A little underwhelming...  It was more like a moist wall.  

And since it was a dead end, we turned around and started our hike down.  

Half way back and my phone started ringing.  It was an FB messenger video chat with my sisters and parents!  I am NOT going to turn that call down!  So we sat on a branch and chatted for a while.  Got to see the talents of a great-nephew!

Eventually we got to the end of our hike and back to civilization.  Doesn't a fire hydrant protected by boulders symbolize that?  

And someone's washing machine run off.  Meri was more impressed by that than the actual waterfall so she posed for a pic of that.

Then we packed up at the hotel, had a nice breakfast and traveled to LAX.  

We got to the airport and through security fairly quickly.  After some exploring, we had a great lunch before returning to our gate. 

Once we were boarded, the flight was delayed longer and eventually they told us that an engine wouldn't start so we can get off the plane if we wanted to.  A girl sitting next to us had a connecting flight to Toronto so she did.  A little while later, the captain told the rest of us to get off too.  This plane was too broke to fly and they were getting us another.  Yikes!  Better now than over the Rockies, right?

So the girl who had gotten off earlier than us let us budge in line to get our connecting flight to Iowa rescheduled.  "We're with her!"

For a little while.  She was able to get a direct flight instead and off she went.

Then we sat.  and sat.  and sat.  Thankfully there was an available plug in to charge my phone within sight of Meri so I read in my little corner and Meri was all alone on her wall...

We finally got back in the new plane after an hour and a half of waiting and eventually winged it back to Chicago where we flew in a holding pattern until they let us land.  Ice storm...  

Since all the flights out of Chicago were now cancelled, they put us up at a really nice hotel and gave us food vouchers to use at the airport.  

On Tuesday morning, Meri and I went down for breakfast before catching our shuttle back for the 8am flight home.  I got a call from Robb who had been watching our flight and he told me that the flight had been moved to 7pm.  dang.  he was right...  Well, the hotel would only let us use the shuttle up until 10am.  So we took it and headed back to the airport.  

I worked from my laptop for a while since I was supposed to be back to work today anyway.  Meri binged watched a tv show and cried when it got sad.  We explored the airport a lot.  

The underground people mover was intriguing and we had races on it!  Once, when I was supposed to be in the next conveyor belt walkway, I purposefully stepped onto Meri's and ran to catch up wiht her.  She heard the whirring of my carry on luggage wheels and looked over her left shoulder to see where I was and almost fell down out of shock that I was right behind her. HA!

So we got a workout all right...  We made up for it by eating well and getting lots of sugary snacks.

I'm so glad I dieted so much before going on this trip...

Finally got on our flight home and made it back to Iowa around 9:30.  Took the shuttle bus out to our economy parked car and found that it had snowed.  A lot...  The roads around the cars were plowed well, but there were heaps of snow surrounding Meri's car.  As we opened the doors, something blew out.  I thought it was a napkin so I didn't worry much.  But then once we were settled, Meri asked, Where is our parking ticket?!  *gasp*  After looking all around her car inside, she backed out over the snow bank and I went back to search with my cell phone flash light.  FOUND the ticket just casually sticking up out of the snow.  WOW...  Prayers answered!  We didn't want to pay the maximum fine for losing it!

Got home around 10:30pm and Meri stayed over in her room.

We were finally home!!  What a wild ride that was!!