Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The Longest Day

Day 57 - Finally Back Home!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we're home. We'll be busy with the holiday and unpacking, so it may be a day or two before our next post.

Have you ever wished for a couple "extra" hours in a day? We got them today while traversing 12 time zones en-route from Almaty to Memphis, making the actual calendar day today 36 hours long for us. Unlike our two-night trip to Kazakhstan, we took off from Almaty in the morning daylight and landed in Memphis in the waning evening light, a little over 20 hours later, but still the same day.

We were up at 4:30 am for a 5:30 am pickup. The flight delayed a few minutes leaving Almaty due to fog, but made up for lost time on leg 1 to Amsterdam.

During our 3 hour layover in Amsterdam, we had our first McDonalds experience: Blizzard Ice Cream treats! (we were too well fed on the plane to eat anything else).

Leg two to Memphis was a long one since we were burning the candle at both ends and in the middle by then, landing safely in Memphis at 4:50 pm (local). After a brief trip through customs and immigration, we headed to the baggage clain, then toward the front door where we had an official greeting team awaiting our arrival, finally arriving at home just before 7 pm.

It's great to be home!

Thanksgiving day will henceforth have an additional special meaning for us.

4 comments:

Kim Moorhead said...

Welcome Home, we have loved following your blog!!

Anonymous said...

YA!!! Doing a happy dance for you here in Atlanta! I am so glad everyone is home and safe! What a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving y'all will have!

Please keep blogging when you can. I have so enjoyed reading about your journey.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Dee

Jennifer said...

Yay!! Glad to hear you made it home safely and in one piece! :-)

Have a great Thanksgiving, and I hope you all recover from jet lag quite quickly!

Joyce said...

Dear Bill,Cathe,Kate, and David,
Welcome Home to the weary travelers. Thanksgiving was probably really special this year.
We hope the settling in goes really smoothly, and can't wait to hear more from you.Congratulations,
Kaz Grandmama?Joyce