Back in the good ol’ USA

We were up even earlier Friday to finish packing, eat breakfast and catch our ride to the airport. We checked in at 11 to learn that the flight was delayed an hour. That never means much unless the traveler has a connection to make on the other end. We had one for 2 1/2 hours in Newark. Now we had 1 1/2 . That too is not important unless the gate of departure is far from the arrival. Throw in intense security and things can get tight. The Israeli security profiles the passengers and things went smoothly and effortlessly with us. I never had any questions about the plane’s being damaged by a passenger that had gone through Israeli security. The first leg of our flight was 12 hours. We were always in the daylight because we were flying east to west. We were surprised that we were served 4 meals during that 12 hours. We were able to sleep a bit but mostly watched movies again. We arrived in Newark but had to hit the ground running. We made the gate (which had been changed) about the time the boarding began. The time was 6:35 but the flight was again delayed about half an hour. This made our arrival in San Antonio after 11. We drove home in a pretty heavy rain and stopped for an ice cream sundae. It was after 1 when we went to bed.

Evelyn has reminded me of something we had learned in Israel. There are many sects but the most unusual is the druse group. They don’t believe in violence and are rejected by all other Muslim groups. They are pure Syrian and refuse to accept anyone who is not. No mixed marriages are allowed therefore excluding all offspring.