Returning Home- Saturday, November 24, 2018

    Our hotel was functional.  It had two full-sized beds for us.   But it did have a few cost saving measures that took getting used to.  No maid came in to make up our room when we were gone, and if we needed more towels, we had to go to the front desk and ask for some.  That also meant that our garbage didn’t get emptied each day unless we took it out on our own.  There were usually bags of garbage in the entryway that we came in each day, but someone was taking them away because they were different bags each time.  Our toilet had a special warning on it not to flush it twice quickly and not to hold the handle down or it would shut off.  The toilet was supposed to be a “water saving” feature, but it was hard to turn the bathtub all the way off.  There was a leaky pipe in the hallway that had rotted out some of the ceiling tiles and left a wet spot on the hall carpet.  If you wanted ice, there were ice trays you could fill and place in the freezer, but there was no ice machine in the hall.  Still, it was a place to flop at the end of each day, and we appreciated that.

     When Scott visited Florida with his parents and brother back in 1978, they went to Disney and the Kennedy Space Center.  On the very last day before they flew back home, Scott’s dad took Scott and Brian to the Wizard’s Mystery Fun House.  They had seen it every day because it was near the hotel they were staying at.  This year, Scott was shocked to see a building that looked just like it near our hotel.  On our way out today, we stopped in the parking lot and took a picture of it to compare the two.  It’s the same building.  That means the “Court of Flags” hotel that we stayed at in 1978 must have been around here somewhere too, but it apparently has been replaced sometime over the last 40 years.

     We got to the airport very early, partly because it’s Thanksgiving weekend and we expected a lot of lines to get through the security, and partly because Julie wanted to stop at the gift shops that she always has to pass by when she’s travelling with the JFK students.  We were there with lots of time to spare.  Scott ended up using Julie’s phone to buy an e-book version of Jurassic Park, since he wanted to read it yesterday.  The actual flight home had a little turbulence but wasn’t bad.

     We left 80 degree weather this morning to come back to 40 degree weather in Buffalo, and it’s been warming up here since earlier this week.  Anna met us at the airport and picked us up at the “Arrival” doors.  We were glad to get home.  The dogs were glad to see Julie and Hedgie was glad to see Emma.