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Happy Belated 4th of July! BW Babe and I spent most of our 4th of July journeying back to our homes here at The Lake having gone through US Customs and going through a record, three security checks, traveling afterwards from the airport to The Lake, and then...I'm not sure what BW did for the rest of the evening, but I unpacked while #1 Son and #1 DIL went out to watch fireworks in a nearby town. I crawled into a bed with clean sheets at around 11 PM, after enjoying a mug of cold beer, offered by #1 Son, one of his homebrew. Wonderful! Having been too tired to blog last night, I'll catch you up on our adventures of yesterday....today.

Our morning started yesterday at 4 AM, Ireland time. Actually, BW Babe stayed up all night on July 3rd into 4th and I grabbed a couple of hours of sleep in the early hours of the morning before our wake-up call. I should have just stayed away like BW. Nothing like waking up with a headache and sandpaper eyes, and grumpy as heck when you have to haul luggage to the lobby by 6 AM. We weren't the only ones getting to the lobby early with all our bags. Although the bus for the airport wasn't scheduled to leave until 6:30 AM, lots of us figured that it would be a good idea to arrive early.

Batt Burns, our tour director, was waiting for us in the lobby. He'd arranged with the hotel for a bag breakfast for each of us. Yummy! Rolls, fruit, and water. We dug in while riding to the airport but most of us returned our fruit, uneaten, because we knew that we wouldn't be able to bring it through U.S. Customs.

Arriving at Dublin's Terminal Two, BW and I grabbed a luggage cart (free in Ireland) and headed immediately to the Aer Lingus baggage check-in area where we were able to drop some of our check-in bags. Thanks to HTP's help, we had little trouble checking in extra baggage. The guy at Aer Lingus asked BW and me what Minnesota was famous for in the US. We looked at him blankly as he was checking us in but then I replied, "The Vikings!" He goggled. The Vikings? BW and I had to explain to him that the Vikings was the name of the football team in Minnesota and he laughed and said, "Oh, I didn't think the Vikings had ever been a part of the history of your country too." Then, I told him that actually, Minnesota is known as the state with 10,000 lakes and he goggled. 10,000 lakes! Yup! He was so nice and patiently directed BW and me to where we needed to go after leaving the check-in desk. However, of course, having so little sleep, BW and I were having cognitive reasoning issues...but...we didn't actually get lost.

Our next stop, after having to abandon our luggage cart, was to lug all our carry-on bags up the escalator and over to an area where we could take care of our Vat tax cards so we wouldn't be charged retroactively for the Vat tax in Ireland. There was a kind person helping us newbies with this card, walking us through the computer kiosk's technology. One mistake both BW and I made, individually, was in entering our arrival and departure dates into Ireland. Both of us got error messages. D'oh! We needed to key in the dates, European-style. Day, Month, Year...NOT Month, Day, Year. Oh well...after over-coming this hurdle, the process went fairly well, however many of our purchases were made without the Vat tax card because we made most of those purchases in Nort4hern Ireland and Scotland, neither who have the Vat tax card. We could have brought our receipts a person at a waiting desk but...we'd both packed our receipts in our checked baggage (already checked). We're going to have to fill our forms, have them notarized and send them in within the next three weeks or we won't see a refund on the Vat. Yes, we saved our receipts so we can recover at least some of the Vat tax we paid. I think I'll wait until I wake up a bit before tackling the process.

Grabbing and filling out a U.S Custom's card (both BW and I messed up on filling out the birthday portion of the card (again, DAY BEFORE MONTH, issues), we heading through our first security checkpoint. In Ireland, we noted that we didn't have to take off our shoes. Despite having removed my watch and removing my belt, I still ended up with a pat down. *sigh* BW breezed right on by.

BW and I were both glad that we arrived at the airport so early before our flight when we got a look at the long, Disneyland-like line that was queued up for Customs. Yes, in Ireland, you go through U.S. Customs at the airport in Dublin. Nice...but long lines. Filling out the Custom's card went fairly smoothly since BW and I spent a great deal of time the previous night itemizing our purchases, adding up receipts, calculating exchange rates, etc. So, when we turned in our cards to the custom's agent, there wasn't any problem. However, we probably didn't have to go through so much trouble and anxiety. I'd actually gone over the $800 limit and was prepared to pay duty-tax but, he just waved me through. Of course, I didn't go over by much. At 3%, I didn't owe all that much. I don't think they want to mess with nickels and pennies.

Next? We ended up in yet another queue for our second security checkpoint. What?! I looked at the TSA agent that was checking our passports and boarding passes and asked him why we were going through this again and it just explained...Homeland Security. Neither BW and I had expected that we'd have to go through the whole process twice...in the same airport. Here, we had to remove shoes AND we got the body scan machine. No pat down for me or BW.

We arrived at our departure gate an hour before boarding. There was plenty of time to take advantage of a nearby Duty-Free shop near our gate and a shop that was selling candy bars that we can't buy here in the states. Hey! It's fun to try weird and different candy bars to share with friends and family. Besides, both BW and I still had extra Euros to spend. We bumped into several of our fellow tour members waiting at our gate area, some of them would be boarding the same plane that we were on as far as Chicago, others were at nearby gates waiting for planes to other US city locations. It was fun sharing our various experiences as we went through US Customs. Sadly, we didn't see the Harpist, Lord Douglas, or Mr. D but I'm sure that they made it through just fine. Their flight wasn't leaving for a full hour after ours so they didn't need to get to the airport as early as we did.

After boarding the airplane and settling in, BW and I checked out the movie selection on the plane. I chose the latest Bruce Willis movie (loved the movie...always amused that Bruce gets so beat up and bloodied, and now his movie son too...with very little health issues). BW picked out the movie Guilt Trip. Despite many interruptions (a meal and announcements), I did finally get to see the entire movie. BW didn't get to finish watching her movie until close to landing in Chicago. She kept on dozing off. Actually, I probably dozed off for about three hours as well. We were both so tired that our former difficulty with falling asleep on planes disappeared.

Upon arriving in Chicago, we loaded ourselves (with the other cattle), into the airport shuttle train heading from Terminal 5 to Terminal 1. We knew that we'd have to go through a security checkpoint from our previous trip through the Chicago airport so we weren't all that surprised. We breezed through with no problems and headed toward our departure gate. At this point, we encountered a bit of confusion because, mysteriously, our flight number had been changed from an Aer Lingus number to a United number. Interesting. Where the heck was F1C? Terminal 2? With a bit of a feeling of panic, BW and I asked around and were directed, to the far outreaches of Terminal 1 where it connects to Terminal 2. There, we found that Gate F1 is split into an A, B, and C gate. The plane was fairly small. We ended up having to walk outside, along the edge of the tarmac, and up a set of rollaway stairs into the plane. That first step was a bit difficult for BW and me, humping our heavy carry-ons but we prevailed.

The trip from Chicago to Minneapolis was short and a bit turbulent. When the plane almost touched down, all of a sudden, it pulled up and took off again, almost vertically. Weird. Later, we were told that the wind gusts were too strong to land the plane safely so they had to make another pass at it. Of course, we did land safely. No real problems. And, we gathered all our bags and headed to baggage claim where our flight number never was listed on the board. However, HTP (whose flight had arrived a couple hours earlier from Arizona) and BW's husband did find us, just as our checked baggage came down onto the carousel. It was nice having someone else help move the bags. JC loaded all our luggage into the car and we headed north to The Lake, entertaining JC and HTP with our exploits in Scotland and Ireland. JC and HTP both had some dinner before BW and I arrived so we didn't bother to stop. Eager to get home, unload, and unpack.

And so, I'm home! We're home! I'm all unpacked and somewhat organized. Kylee is doing great and she greeted me with wiggling excitement and LOTS of doggy kisses. I'm feeling a bit foggy this morning. My garden is growing just fine. I watered the plants on my deck last night. They were very thirsty. I still need to water the tomato plants on the lower deck and the potato plants out in the kennel garden. The potato plants have grown HUGE! I'm not sure how I'll be able to hill them. I'll have to Google what to do. My bird feeders all need filling, and there's LOTS that needs to be done here at The Lake in the coming days. It's good to be home but I'm not eager to get back to the realities of laundry, dishes, and cooking my own meals.

Random Quote of the Day

A person travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.

George Moore