Day Sixteen

Thank goodness for late checkout.  Spent a wonderful if unexpected morning in complete oblivion in Fayetteville, GA.  Finally got to sleep around 5 am, which beats the tar out of what kids at the airport wound up doing.  Eight of us got hotel rooms earlier this morning, and they let us check out at 1:30 pm (no food since yesterday’s lunch, BTW, other than two bags of pretzels).  While I am recycling clothes, at least I feel like a human being again.

Gus is still upstairs, asleep.  He’s basically been sick for the entire trip.  He’s already threatened to hole up in his apartment until his mom comes on Saturday, and I do not blame him in the least. 

Status update: as of about 3 pm local, five of us are enjoying the hospitality of the hotel lobby (many thanks to these wonderful people), two are out with cousins in the area, and one is likely asleep.  Five of our kids got earlier flights home, and the other two spent a very miserable night in the airport—one got an hour’s sleep, and the other stayed up all night long.  The plan as of now is to get moving around 5 pm (Atlanta traffic is brutal) with the hopes of getting to the airport by 6, where we can spend (another) five hours waiting.  And the Bruins won the Stanley Cup, blowing the home ice advantage rule.

Definition of irony 1: the journey home from a storm-chasing trip is delayed due to severe thunderstorms.

Definition of irony 2: the hotel vending machine in Fayetteville, GA (outside of Atlanta) dispenses Pepsi products.

One of the students waiting at the airport has been sick, too.  Coming here was the call to make.  Apparently he contracted some kind of food poisoning. 

The airport wait was relatively uneventful, although when they announced a gate change for us we almost panicked.  The ride home was a bit bumpy, but at least the sick student made the plane ride without hurling (although he might have once before we took off). 

On the way home one of the tunes that came up was Two of Us (from Let It Be), with the chorus “we’re on our way home… we’re on our way home…we’re going home.”  I don’t think I’ll believe it until I’m yelling at Dustin and Kathy to stop yelling at each other.

Well, it’s been an eventful trip: 16 hotel rooms in 16 different cities over 16 nights, lots of meteorologically and geologically (and psychologically) interesting facets, but no tornadoes.  I hope the kids were equally impressed.  Apparently the Oswego stormchasers busted out, too.  I learned lots of things, some of which I didn’t necessarily want to know, but that’s how education goes sometimes.  While it wasn’t always easy, it was mostly a blast, but it’s enough—thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.