Grueling day of travel

We spent yesterday packing up and traveling home. Buzz and I got up early and while Buzz took Krissy to the airport, I started folding up traps and fixed some food for the boys and tried to get them moving. When he got back, we packed up everything that needed to be stored at the refuge. At the refuge, we couldn't get the vehicles into the gate, so we did a bucket brigade to pass stuff in through the hole in the fence and then dragged a hose and vacuum cleaner out through the fence to give the vehicles a quick sprucing up before turning them in. By the time we were done, I was drenched with sweat.

I put on my bathing suit and took one last long swim in the ocean. The sun was shining and the water was particularly clear. I dunked myself under the water to wash off the sweat and wiggled my toes in the cooler water near the bottom. I floated and watched the clouds stream across the sky. The beach was deserted at Cottages with just a few people farther down at the public beach swimming. I dunked myself again. Ahhhh...

We got everything packed and in the vehicles by noon. We dropped everyone off at the airport and then Buzz and I took the vehicles back, walked back to the airport, and started navigating the airport security and border control. The ticketing agent seemed particularly scrutinizing, asking Daniel how old he was and looking carefully at the picture in his passport. We learned eventually that Daniel had been randomly selected for special security screening. Everyone seemed to think it was questionable to subject a 12 year old to special security screening, but went through the motions. Poor Charlie learned he couldn't take his palm hat back to the states because of the potential for transmitting some palm mite. So the lucky palm trees in Massachusetts were successfully defended by border patrol and have nothing to fear from us.

The flights back were uneventful. We landed in Hartford at midnight and got home an hour later. On Monday, I go back to work.