The day started (as usual) early as the Hunts loaded their car and headed out to their flight to Portland.

Then it was time for food (and coffee!).
Leaving J and S behind the four of us headed down to the restaurant.
Service was on “island time” so we had time to walk on the beach before our food arrived.

Then it was back to the condo to finish packing.

The original plan was for Nana, Papa, and the M-Bs to stay on and fly home on 1/1.
However, with S’s continuing fever and signs that it was spreading to the rest of us we decided that the better part of wisdom would be to “call it” and head home today.
So yesterday afternoon we spent some time rearranging flight schedules and such and shortly before noon we checked out and headed to the airport.

Our flight was scheduled for 1:30 and the M-Bs wasn’t till 4ish so they dropped us off and then went to scare up some lunch and turn in the car.

We cleared security, got some lunch, and made our way to the gate…and waited. They started to load, then stopped. So we waited.
Eventually they started loading again, but not before the M-Bs arrived (their flight was scheduled to use the same gate).

As we were boarding the pilot came on the speaker to apologize. When he checked out of his hotel he neglected to reclaim his passport, so he had to go back and get it.
Fortunately they made up most of the delay on the way to Minneapolis so our connection wasn’t too tight.

OK, maybe a bit too tight.
We missed it – which left us in Minneapolis, at 9:00 at night, waiting for a hotel shuttle, along with everyone else who had been to the playoff game between the Vikings and the Packers.
We eventually got checked in, found that our room hadn’t been cleaned, got shifted to another room, waited for the shuttle to take us to a nearby Ihop (Yes, the Mall of America was right next door, but it was Sunday and they close at 7:00.).

Then it was to bed, to sleep, to wake up too soon (but at a decent hour)…

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