March 17, 2025 The journey home

   We had an early start with our alarm blaring at 4:20 a.m.  We had the muffins and oranges that we got from yesterdays breakfast buffet when we arrive just before 10 a.m. when it closed, and were told we could help ourselves to the buffet since we would be leaving too early in the morning for the included breakfast.

    The shuttle to the airport arrived just after 5 a.m. We were getting our luggage tags by 5:30 a.m. There already were thousands of people milling around. After baggage drop there was a short train to take to terminal E, then the security line. We found out that people over 75 do not need to remove their shoes for US security.

    By 6:30 a.m. we were looking for gate 65 for the 7:25 a.m. flight to Minneapolis. Claire, in the middle seat, listened during the three hour three minute flight to non stop chattering, boarding on drivel, from the window woman passenger. She follows fake news themes like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a naturalized U.S citizen and he owns a $20 million house in Florida + Canada has a President. Had she bothered to fact check these claims she would have found them all false. Fortunately, the engine noise drowned out a lot of her voice.

   Our layover was over five hours. We walked around Terminal 1 for over an hour to get some more daily steps, then found the Escape Lounge for lunch, espresso based coffees and desserts. That used up the final two free lounge passes that I have until the end of June. We stayed for three hours. It took almost 15 minutes to walk back to section C to our gate 16. The plane was scheduled to leave at 3:19 p.m. Just before 3 p.m., an announcement stated that a security sweep had been completed and boarding would start soon.  We were in the air by 3:45 p.m. for the 70 minute flight home. The Nexus line at Canadian Customs was empty. We had not bought any souvenirs so there was no declaration to be made.

    Our neighbour picked us up and we were home just after 5:30 p.m.


Steps: 15,115

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