Mark & Miriam said farewell at the bus, not going with us to the airport so as to raise no suspicions about someone not leaving. The Israelis have very good and tight security, and are suspicious of any out of the ordinary behaviors. Dan did ride with us, but went his own way at the airport to fly to Elat. That left twelve of us returning home to the USA, and Dick was now the tour leader, with very good help from Karen. Fortunately, there wasn't too much to do since Naim took us into the airport and got us situated for security and check in.
The fun started when we walked into the airport and saw that our flight was delayed about an hour and a half--the only delay on the board. Since our flight was not going to leave for a while, we stood for about a half hour before they started the security process, a three part effort. We all made it through fairly easily and quickly, with only a couple of secondary inspections. It was a good and quick (relatively speaking) process. We gathered in the large central waiting area until time to go to the gate. Ben Gurion is a modern beautiful airport.
At the announced time, we boarded the plane to begin the journey home. Going west, it's about a 12-hour flight. Even though they tried to make up time, we landed in Newark at 5:30 only thirty minutes before our connecting flight was supposed to take off. Needless to say, we didn't make the connection. In fact we didn't get through immigration and customs till about 6:05. So we went to the rebooking desk. We had been told on the plane that our group had been rebooked to Friday morning and they would put us up for the night. But it took a long time for the agents to get all the paperwork done. We went to the airport Ramada with our food vouchers and settled in for a short night.We got up at 2:00 AM to catch the 3:00 o'clock shuttle for a 5:30 flight to Houston. Even though it was far too early, the airport procedures went smoothly. We checked our bags at the Group Check-in counter and proceeded to the gate. We used our vouchers to buy something for breakfast and for lunch on the plane. In Houston we had about 35 minutes, and fortunately our gates were close together. As I write this, we are somewhere over the western Rockies on our last leg into Portland.
It has been a very good 12 (instead of 11) days with a good group. Everyone even seems to have survived Dick's substitute leadership on the way home.
And to complete the story, we arrived home in Portland right on time. Thanks very much to all our fellow travelers and pilgrims for a wonderful and blessed trip!
Dick - Naim told us Saturday that he encouraged you to host a group yourself. You and Karen would be natural tour leaders, with your many years of choir tours on your resume. Thanks so much for finishing up the group journey. We are very grateful to have had the opportunity to add on some things Mark has had on his "bucket list." See you soon.
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