Home Again, Home Again

January 18, 2001 Woke up at 6am to my wake up call, pulled on my clothes and grabbed my gear. I was all set to go and I headed downstairs. The only things I had brought on the plane were my journal, my CD player, and my passport. We loaded into the shuttle bus that arrived precisely on time, and off we went. The man who drove seemed to be from India or somewhere (brown skin, high voice). He drove like the hounds of Hell were after us. He scared the daylights out of us several times, but got us to the airport quickly. We thanked him and paid him and he was gone. We found our way to the ticket counter and were the first ones there. We got to choose where we sat and I chose a window seat. It totally paid off. Due to the nature of our flight, we actually came within a few miles of the Arctic Circle. I was able to see vast stretches of frozen ocean and Icebergs. It was neat. We watched "The Kid" with Bruce Willis and Hitchcock's "The Birds." All of us but Pete (which was weird) slept somewhat on the plane.

Due to the amount that he slept on the trip, we had all joked that Pete's goal was to sleep in as many countries as possible, so to have him not sleep on the plane was odd. We ate on the plane again. I chose salmon in cream sauce. Later they served us baguettes with ham and cheese. I still had a small bottle of Scotch from the airplane left that I brought home. We landed beautifully in Toronto. We passed through customs without incident and Pete was the very last one through. We had coffee and munchies and I dozed at the table.
We found our gate and went there. Phil, Mike and I went to the boutique and got drinks and an Ontario patch for my coat. We went back to wait for our flight to Syracuse. We watched Star Trek: The Next Generation. Finally the call came to board the bus to our little puddle-jumper plane. We took off on time. I listened to Hank Williams and dozed off. I awoke to the plane tipping to begin our decent into Syracuse. We landed perfectly and I was the first one off the plane. Kelly, Corey, Bob, and Emo and Andy were there as well as others. Channel 3 News was not there. I said goodbye to the guys and went home and showered. I made a few calls and got ready to go to Denny's for American Swill Coffee. We talked about the trip. Only Phil and I showed up out of the five of us. I drank coffee and talked to the coffee crew for about three hours and then went to Becky's for the night. It was good to be home.

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