CHAPTER 31: BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Monday, December 6

We are back in the States! Our travels in Europe are over for the time being. These two tired puppies are recuperating at a relative's house and are making the adjustment to stateside life. To quote the band, “what a long, strange trip it's been”.

Saturday evening, in Rota, we had dinner with an old friend of mine and his wife. They took us out to a Spanish tapas bar/restaurant, where we enjoyed a real Spanish dinner. We also got to see a real Spanish kid wreck his real Spanish moped in the street right in front of us. No injuries, except to the kid's pride, so we got dinner and entertainment all in one fell swoop.

On Sunday we tried to get on a C5 flying straight to Norfolk. That one got turned into a C141 by the magic of a pen, then canceled entirely. Then a charter airliner wound up on the schedule bound for McGuire Air Force Base outside of Philadelphia, but wouldn't be leaving until around midnight. Nobody knew if there would be any Space-A seats available. We kept calling back every couple of hours. Then during the 10:45 pm call, they said, "Oh, we're doing the Space-A call now." Whoa, Nellie!!! We got our bags loaded into the car, checked out of the Navy Lodge, and down to the air terminal (including two wrong turns) in ten minutes flat. After we were manifested onto the flight, we found that it wasn't going to McGuire after all, but to Baltimore. My aunt and cousin live there, and were the last people we saw before we began this odyssey, so this would bring us full circle. We left Rota around 2 a.m. and the plane was loaded with a brigade of Sea Bees heading home after a 7-month deployment to Kosovo. A lively and interesting crowd to say the least. Janis and I met an old retired Army officer who was an infantry officer in Europe in World War 2 and had some way cool war stories. He invited us to visit him in Greece and we may take him up on it.

We arrived in Baltimore at 3 a.m. local time. Janis thoroughly enjoyed calling my aunt and cousin at 5:15 a.m. to say "We're HEEEERRE!!!" and they didn't even know we were coming. Bless their hearts, they took these two homeless wanderers in anyway. We're staying here for a few days to unwind, then will be heading down to North Carolina.

So ends Skip and Janis's Great European Adventure of 1999. We're going back eventually. Actually, I have to return to Rota next month so I can finish selling the Range Rover. That should just be a quick trip. We still want to spend at least a month in Paris sometime, and we'd like to spend some more time in Venice and a few other places. We won't do any more wide-area travels, though. Been there, done that, don't need to do it again. For future travels, we'll base ourselves in one place for the duration, with side trips as available.

Previous Chapter | "Trip" Table of Contents | Next Chapter