Trip of a Lifetime - Day 21 - Going Home

Today was a relatively uneventful one at the onset. We are on our way home. We had a bus and special guide who escorted us to the airport. He wasn't the cutest thing I'd ever seen, but was extremely nice and helpful. This new airport is a huge place, but fortunately the distance between where we were to check-in and the club for Cathay Pacific were very near where our driver dropped us off, so I didn't need a wheelchair this time. They had us check in at the Business Class counter but due to the fact that we were flying first class, we had royal treatment again. When I saw the distance that we were going to fly in order to get to Los Angeles,7254 miles, cold reality set in. This was going to be a LONG flight!

The amount of time it would take to get from Hong Kong to LA was more than a little disconcerting. Time didn't drag by too slowly on the flight home however, since we were constantly being fed and pampered by the flight attendants and had a selection of 30 newly released movies to watch. As soon as we boarded we were offered champagne and orange juice while we waited to take off.

Then the food service started and it was a food fest.... five courses which started with a sizeable portion of Gravlaxand ended with a delicious desert.

The view from the plane window was a show in itself and every bit as good as the movies that we watched. The clouds were beautiful and it was a clear as a bell. In fact, it was so clear that could see forever, to quote Barbara Streisand.

There were so few of us in this cabin that we each had a flight attendant to take care of us.

Our personal flight attendant was darling and when she discovered that we had grandchildren, she made a special effort to get some treats for the boys. She checked with her supervisor and finally brought us the special gifts for us to take to them. When we looked inside the sack, we found things that were appropriate for a two or three year old. Our boys are 8 and 10! I'm afraid that they would have been insulted if we gave them to them. I didn't have the heart to tell her that we really didn't need these and for her to save them for another passenger. She would have been so disappointed since she had gone to so much trouble for us.

We decided that since we had too many carry-ons already, we would leave them in the storage bin at our seats and she wouldn't know the difference.

Wrong! We weren't as smart as we thought we were. As soon as we left the plane in Los Angeles, we heard someone calling us and it was her. She caught up with us and told us that we had forgotten our packages that she had given us. We apologized for the "oversight" and took the precious parcels with us. As it worked out, our porter had small children so we gave the treasures to him for his family.

We were on the first row of the plane on this final flight to DFW. Just before they closed the door and we were settled in our seats, we saw this woman with big dark glasses, jeans and a sequined sweater get on board and take the seat across from us. I took another look (not everyone looked like her) and lo and behold ... it was Paula Abdul! For those of you who are not fans of American Idol, Paula Abdul is an American multi-platinum selling Grammy Award-winning singer, dancer, television personality, jewelry designer, and Emmy Award-winning choreographer. In the 1980s, Abdul rose from being a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers NBA basketball team to being a sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era, then to being a Pop-R&B singer with a string of hits in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She has sold over 53 million records to date. She dropped out of sight for a while and then she found renewed fame and success in the 2000s as the very nice, encouraging and very often, fickle judge on the highly rated television series American Idol. She ranked # 47 on VH1's "50 Greatest Women Of The Video Era". Our son, Franklin is an Audio Engineer and worked with her when he was in Hollywood.

She was very nice to us. I finally got up the courage to speak to her as she was coming back from the bathroom. I told her that we were big fans of American Idol and wondered if she would let me take photograph of her with Frank to show Franklin. She was most accommodating and we had a long conversation after I had taken the photograph.

When we landed at DFW, Franklin was there to pick us up and he got to visit with her as well. They had not seen each other in several years but she said that she remembered him from their time working together in the studio in Los Angeles as well as Las Colinas.

We are really tired. We have been up for nearly 3o hours so let's say that it's been a very long day. We will spend the next few days trying to get over jet lag, unpacking and sorting photographs. I took 6989 digital shots on this trip so my work is cut out for me for a while. In fact, I'm seriously considering making a hard copy of this journal and putting it in a book for my children and grandchildren to enjoy after I'm long gone. What do you think of this idea? I value your opinions. I also need some advice about a cover for this project. Should I use this one with one of my paintings on the front of my epistle

or this one with one of my photographs from the trip??? I need your input and help on this one !!! Which one stands a better chance of making the best seller list in the NY Times? ;-)

I hope that you have enjoyed traveling with me. This has been a truly unique experience for both me and my darling husband, Frank, but it's good to be home again. It will be nice to sleep in our own bed for a change.

I want to thank you again for taking this journey with me and I will say good bye for now to each of you in Chinese. Happy Dreams!

Zai jian, Pcasso