Day 15 - Tuesday 19 October 2010

Sigh, our last day of this fabulous "Bucket List" adventure. We enjoyed our last morning together with coffee and biscuits on the balcony of our condo at Ngwenya Lodge overlooking the river bordering Kruger Park.

We loaded all our gear and climbed aboard our van for the trip to Nelspruit airport. Six of our group said goodbye to Hugo, Anel, Naude, Hilda and Jumper. An emotional separation for we had been a close family for the last two weeks. Jumper and Hilda were remaining to spend more time with her family. We had a short flight to JoBerg where we had time for some lunch and shopping before boarding the plane for our anticipated 18 hour flight to Washington Dulles.


Little did we know of the challenges we still faced.  there was a bit of concern for our baggage as there were stations all over the check-in area that shrink wrapped staircases for security. we had already checked ours in so we were at the mercy of the baggage handlers. We were then subjected to a secondary screening at the departure gate. The explanation was that there was a high security alert in the US and all US bound flights were double screened.  Interestingly enough was that if someone needed to use the restroom they had to exit and return through this gate screening. We finally boarded the plane and settled in with Patty and Doug in forward seats while Larry, Ronnie, Jenifer and Ben were seated in the aft of the plane. Next was an equipment problem so we were late in departing Johannesburg, therefore late in departing Dakar and more importantly late arriving in Washington Dulles. Baggage tickets were checked as we deplaned and folks were shuttled to many separate buses so we were unable to say goodbye when we retrieved our baggage.. It seems that we were separated by the terminal where we would catch our next flights and Patty and Doug were together because they were both on United, Ben was on Delta and this was the final destination for Ronnie, Larry and Jenifer. In any case we were not able to connect for another emotional separation.

Patty and Doug missed their scheduled flights so they were off to stand in line with other United passengers that had also missed their connecting flights. Both Patty and Doug were scheduled out after around a 5 hour layover so they had a light lunch before going to their appropriate terminals.Everyone eventually made it home safely although it took days to get our legs working again after such a long flight.

What a wonderful trip full of great times, good friends and lifetime memories.