Ecuador 8/4/2023 |
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Friday, August 4, 2023 - Arrival at HomeOn our flight from Quito to Fort Lauderdale, I was trying to sleep, when Craig excitedly pointed out a lightning storm over Panama. Lightning was arcing from one cloud to the next. Craig thought it was very cool, but I was terrified. I'm usually not scared of lightning, so Craig hadn't thought it would be a big deal to direct my attention to it. But I was having visions of our plane being struck, and then sleep was impossible. I couldn't take my eyes off the window.After we finally passed that storm, we saw several others, though they were well below us and therefore less scary to me. Still, between the extreme turbulence that we experienced on our arrival in Quito and these thunderstorms, I was relieved when we safely landed in Fort Lauderdale at 5:15 a.m. A wheelchair attendant wheeled us outside to the other terminal. It was extremely hot and humid even though the sun had not yet risen. We got to the gate and I went to get some coffee and breakfast sandwiches. The place was mobbed, as it was the only non-sit-down breakfast place in this wing of the airport. You had to add your own cream and sugar, which was difficult because it was so crowded with people waiting for their orders. I ordered a ham and cheese croissant for myself and a sausage breakfast sandwich for Craig. While I was waiting, they sold many more croissants, but of course by the time it was time to serve me, they had run out. So they substituted a second sausage breakfast sandwich. There were around five people behind the counter, so the delays were perplexing. I was totally frazzled by the time I had my coffee and food and went back to Craig at the gate. I had been gone for so long that Craig knew that there must be a story to be told! A woman from Chelsea/Lynnfield who now lives in Fort Lauderdale and her cute little female imperial shih-tzu Lolli sat across from us. Lolli is trained to work with nursing home patients. She saw Craig's wheelchair and immediately went over to him and gave him kisses on the hands and face. She was so adorable and well-behaved. Even Craig, who is usually iffy about being "kissed" by dogs, was completely enamored. We really enjoyed chatting with her owner, too. It helped to pass the time. The staff got us in line to board the plane, but then said that maintenance was changing a tire on the plane. While we were in line with the other disabled people, Lolli came over to say hello. They finally announced that the tire was fixed, while quipping that they don't exactly have the Daytona pit crew working at the airport. The delay was fine with us, as long as we had an intact tire! Instead of 8:30, we ended up taking off around 9:45 a.m. We arrived in Boston at 12:40 p.m. We got a wheelchair and collected our luggage. We considered taking the Logan Express home, but of all the Logan Express buses listed on the board, ours was the only one without an arrival time. It remained blank the entire time we were picking up our luggage. We didn't know what was going on with that bus, and we just wanted to get home. So we decided to take a cab. We had to go all the way to central parking to get a cab because of the airport construction. We got home at around 2 o'clock. We never knowingly passed our bus going the other direction on the ride, so we were glad that we hadn't waited for it. |
 Lolli See all photos from August 4 |
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