Tahoe - coming home

Since I picked Ray and Ali up from the airport on Friday, Ray wanted to treat me to a half-day pass on Sunday before we headed out. The conversation went something like this:

Ray: I want to buy you a half-day pass for driving all the way back to the airport.
Me: I appreciate that most generous token of your appreciation...
Ray: ...and you'll accept.

We were the first people up in either house and contemplated back and forth whether we should go or not. We thought about the timing aspect, if we were just gonna pack up and have the girls pick us up and leave from there, how pissed would everyone be if we were gone, etc. As it turned out, we made the right call by NOT going.

At about 7:30am (we lost an hour due to Daylight Savings) we just went ahead and started cleaning, packing, and cleaning some more. Slowly, everyone else starting waking up and pitching in... Dishes kept appearing out of nowhere, but we just kept cleaning. Finally, it seemed that all the housework had been done and all the bags had been packed - it was 10am - it took us nearly the whole time to get the house and ourselves ship-shape. I wanted to leave at 10:30am - I had the trip back to Reno all timed out. We efficiently packed the Rogue and watched as everyone else packed their cars. We took a group picture, said goodbye to everyone, and headed on our course. We were the first car to leave.

We drove back to Reno and stopped at In-n-Out Burger for lunch....DELICIOUS!!! I had this stop scheduled into the trip - and knew the restaurant was pretty close to the airport. Our cars were due back at 1pm and I knew we had a little more than an hour drive from Tahoe to Reno, so this gave us just under an hour for lunch. The other two cars didn't follow right behind and really weren't adhering to our plan. They wanted to stop on the way and get a few souvenirs, plus they had to return Maddie's skis from the day before because no one would take her... bummer. As I was finishing my Double-Double and fresh-cut French fries, the other crew rolled in. We stayed long enough to say hi to them and give over our seats to them (this place gets crowded!), but we were on this well-calculated mission, so we had to bounce. On a sidenote, I feel like George Costanza when I plan a trip like this, because I am so meticulous about the departure and arrival details and I want to make good time on the road. We had to get some gas, which was another adventure in and of itself.

We pulled into a local gas station (forgot the name) because Kristen had won a gas card at the Safe-way grocery store, worth about 7 dollars - couldn't let that go unused. Ray went to pump the gas and realized you have to prepay at this particular filling station - no biggie, or was it? He went inside and I followed. He offered the clerk the gas card and his debit card. The clerk, who was Indian, couldn't process in his brain that Ray was trying to prepay with two methods of payment and just wanted to fill the tank, so he couldn't tell the man how much he wanted on the card.... not to mention that the clerk did not want to take Ray's debit card because he said, "No credit, only cash." To which Ray replied, "This is debit," and the clerk said, "Yes, we take debit" and stared blankly at Ray until Ray motioned the card closer to the clerk, waving it as if to suggest that the man take it from him and hold it to swipe, thus completing the transaction upon Ray's successful dispensing of the gasoline. This was a funny exchange, worthy of conversing about in the car on the rest of the short drive to the airport.

We pulled up to the Southwest airlines curbside check-in, unloaded, and I pulled the car into the rental return at 12:57pm - three minutes to spare! The other two cars were nowhere to be found and we later learned that they were charged an extra 20-something dollars for not returning by 1pm.... should have stuck with us! After being rejected for standby we made our way to the terminal for our long wait for the flight to Phoenix. This allowed me to catch up on some much-needed reading. We connected in Phoenix, literally running through the terminal to get to our next gate.... it was THAT close!! We had no incidents on the flight home and I caught up on more reading, which coincidentally hurt my back from being bent over because it has been achy ever since - I'm getting too old for this.

We got our bags, got to our car, and said our goodbyes. Kristen and I got home and enjoyed Jake's company for a little while before heading to bed - it was about 2am. I slept until 11am and went in for a half day at work, knowing that everyone lese had taken full days off.

That was the trip in a 4-post nutshell. I had a blast and can't wait to do a group trip again! I know I left some stuff out and that is bound to happen.... anyone who wants to add something can feel free.

I hope the stories were entertaining!