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| This morning’s view from the backyard of Karen’s home in Eden Prairie, where we’ll be staying while here in Minnesota. |
With the best intentions, I’d planned to post this yesterday. But, once we arrived at son Greg’s house and the fun activity began, I had no time whatsoever to wrap it up and upload the post.
We are ridding ourselves of our Skype phone number and will use Whatsapp, Skype, or Facebook Messenger for future out-of-the-country calls. Our new phones have reasonable international call rates (as a global phone), but there’s no point in paying when no cost options are available via the web.
We’ll never have to repurchase a SIM card when these global phones work anywhere. Today, I’ll finish setting mine up, and we’ll be good to go. Ironically, Tom forgot to bring his with him when he left to see his family this morning. Ha! I guess now. We’ll become more phone conscientious with these new devices.
On to our trip from the pier in Fort Lauderdale to Minneapolis:
Without a doubt, we are always grateful to any airline for getting us safely to our location. I wish we were tolerant enough to feel that was enough. A certain semblance of organization and flow is also required to provide anything beyond a one-star rating.
Delta Airlines, masterful advertisers, appealing to all of our senses, evidenced at Fort Lauderdale, Detroit, and Minneapolis airports with the most pleasing graphics posters at every turn, leave a traveler with high expectations.
We were sorely disappointed. Both flights were seriously late with few updates offering their passengers little comfort and remained in a perpetual state of confusion. Let’s face it, we’re fairly savvy travelers, and yet we were constantly scratching our heads, wondering what was next.
As it turned out, an expected arrival time in Minneapolis was at 6:30 pm when in fact, we didn’t arrive until almost 8:30 pm, not the worst delay but indeed the most confusing.
With the necessity of picking up the rental car and a horrendous walk to the car rental area, we weren’t on our way to Karen’s home until well after 9:00 pm. We’d been on the move for 14 hours since we disembarked the ship in Fort Lauderdale when we arrived at Karen’s home.
Surprisingly, to both of us, we felt relieved and energized, ending up enjoying the remainder of the evening with Karen and Rich, in their comfy living room, in their gorgeous home, sipping on wine, and catching up.
With Tom off to spend part of the day with his family and the evening with mine watching the Minnesota Vikings game, it will be another good family day for both of us.
This morning, son Greg is picking me up to attend a brunch at a restaurant with Camille, his wife, my three grandkids, and other family members and friends. She has been going through a complex medical crisis, and we are all here to love and support her.
My younger sister Julie is also visiting from California, so it’s all special to be together once again. It has been two years and three months since we were here.
We’ll continue to post each day during our two-plus months in the USA. Photos may not be prevalent during this period, but we’ll do our best. I have several for tomorrow’s post. Please check back.
Photo from one year ago today, November 10, 2018:
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| Wildebeest Willie looks into my eyes when I talk to him in a goofy high pitched voice. In this photo, he was sharing pellets with impalas. For more photos, please click here. |