16 August 2007

Travel Day 17 — US and LA Bound

Posted by BaBa under: Travel .

Today is the last day for us here in Guangzhou and the last day with Lucy at Chinese Life. The store closed yesterday as the lease was up. It is kind of a sad for all with the store closing. Lucy is headed back to school and we wished her well. Wanda – we have her email address for you and said goodbye from your family as well.

It was my intention to complete all of the writing about the trip today. I am still planning this. It is now 2pm and I have just finished working to post all of the pictures for each day. This at least will begin to tell the story for each day. Both MaMa and Sheridan are napping and I have 2 more golden hours to work on the posting. I will get as much posted as I can. I have transferred the information to the Palm so that I can continue to work on it at the Airport and on the flight if needed.

We leave at 4:30pm with luggage out at 4pm. I have two tasks left today – pickup the photos from the disposable camera we sent to the orphanage in a care package and return a Chairman Mao pocket watch that will not wind. The only other task is to Check Out. I will not forget this task this time and to pack the electronics. I have completed packing the paperwork and so really need only 30 minutes to accomplish my tasks.

So long from China, next stop LA along with customs and immigration.

Our adventure continued as we made our way through the traffic in Guangzhou to the airport. Driving in China is like many other countries, you make lanes where none exist. I have not seen more than 12 inches separate cars as they do this make a lane driving. It is scary to watch and I could not imagine driving this way. I am sure that I would have an accident as you expect the other driver not to visit your lane.

We arrived at the Airport and got a trolley for the bags. Grace stayed with us and got us checked in and our seat assignments. She also went down to the McDonald’s and helped us order take away for dinner. We arrived at the airport early in order to get the seats assigned in a good location. This worked well, but we would have a longer wait for the flight to LA.

Security lines to leave the county include a line for customs, and a line for exit permits along with the final line for security. Sheridan did really well with the lines. He strayed away, but would always come back when called for. The first two lines were a breeze for us other than having our hands extremely full. Security was another matter. I had to take off my shirt to get to the money pouch and so must have made quite a sight with too many carry-ons, standing in my undershirt and barefooted. Oh well, we made it through the lines and were off to the gate.

We passed the time at the gate with Sheridan running off some excess energy. He had a good nap earlier before we left. I had us sit right by the boarding gate so that we could board early. This strategy worked and we got on the plane. We had a small incident with a rude lady sitting in front of us as she insisted in leaning her seat back the entire flight and made a rude comment about our two year old. What an idiot. His night terrors proved a payback for her rudeness.

It was a long airplane flight from Guangzhou to LA. Sheridan had a hard time getting to sleep and once asleep, the night terrors were present. It is hard to visualize a child screaming, kicking while asleep. These terrors appear because of a change in routine. We saw this first when we left Nanjing and flew to Guangzhou. All in all he did really well for such a long night. MaMa got very little sleep and I got kicked in the wrong place along with multiple poundings to the legs and abdomen. All in all it was a successful flight. The “Idiot” started playing hide and seek with Sheridan while we were parked on the tarmac. Maybe she realized the error of her ways. I will hope that this is the case as I really want to the think the best of people. Redemption is available for everyone and people do redeem themselves.

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