Australia - Returning Home - October 12

Time to Return Home

Sunday, October 12, was our last day in Australia. We had a leisurely breakfast and a relaxing walk through a Chinese garden near our hotel. At 10:30 am we had a brief group get-together where we shared some of our best experiences of the trip. Surprisingly for us, the opera at the Sydney Opera House was one of our best experiences on the Elderhostel tour. We say "surprisingly" since we're not opera buffs. At 11:30 we caught the bus for the trip to the Sydney airport.

We want to thank Elderhostel and especially, Phil Hayes, for a great tour of Australia. Phil was an excellent leader and made all of us feel comfortable during the entire trip. Here's a picture of Phil (on the right) with our Sydney site leader, Russel.

We also want to thank the Fletcher family (including Saffie) for taking us in for a week. We had an exciting week in Canberra and fun just "hanging out" with them. This really allowed us to get our feet on the ground before starting our Elderhostel tour.

Our flight back to the USA was uneventful - as all good flights are. We arrived in LAX a bit early and had plenty of time to relax before catching our flight from LAX to DFW - which left on time and arrived a bit early. John was there to meet us at the airport.

We want to thank John and Jennifer Stonecipher and family for taking care of us in Ft. Worth. John picked us up at the airport, Jennifer cooked some great meals for us, and we enjoyed getting to see Savannah, Whitney, Blayne and Reagan. They're such a great family. They also took care of Sam for the last few days before we got back - thank you very much for dog-sitting.

We also want to thank Becky and Keith Beckham and family for taking care of our dog, Sam. We knew he was in good hands while we were in Australia.

Finally, we want to thank Julie and Dale Stoncecipher for putting us up - again - before we flew out. Julie got up extra early to drive us to the airport on Wednesday morning, September 17. Thanks, too, for the road snacks for our return drive to Arkansas.

We left Ft. Worth Monday morning, October 13, at about 9:30. The drive through Dallas was interesting as construction delays made for messy traffic. Oh well - it makes us glad we live in HSV, where more than 5 cars is "rush hour." We got back to HSV at about 4 pm. It was great to get back home!