End of the trip

Yesterday's activity was a visit to the U.S.S. Midway, which was quite enjoyable. Unlike tours I've had of submarines, and the visits to the Smithsonian where I saw more planes than any human mind can absorb, the Midway had the advantage that you could see and touch stuff, get right up close to things. There were even planes and helicopters you could get into the cockpit and play with the controls. If not for that it might have felt a little redundant with seeing so many of the same planes back in D.C., and seeing the submarine back in Connecticut. (Though an aircraft carrier is nowhere near as cramped as a submarine, but a lot of the "they lived this way" stuff is still similar.)

Since the flight home is overnight tonight, the timing for the day is a bit odd. Checkout at the hotel is noon, but the flight out is at 9:45pm. So we have to pack up and close everything down fairly early, then leave our luggage with the hotel in storage, having little access to it, all day. We'll take the bus out to the Ocean Beach area, where we'll while away the afternoon before returning to the hotel to catch a shuttle bus to the airport in the evening. Then the flight home is overnight, getting in early in the morning. So (assuming that flights aren't rescheduled, delayed, overbooked, rebooked, etc.) we should arrive thoroughly exhausted (despite hoping to get a tiny bit of sleep on the plane, though it being full will probably make that difficult) but hopefully also in a position to change timezone again (though not as easily as the flight out here shifted us to this time zone).

The big gap in the day not only means no Internet access for about a whole day (and after that, crashing and sleeping to stretch it farther) but also limited, if any, access to computers. It'll also mean we'll have to carefully balance what we have with us for the day out with what needs to be packed already, or can be easily repacked. For instance, if we bring the camera to Ocean Beach, it is at the cost of being able to pack it in the suitcase that'll have to be done tomorrow morning (since the camera has to be buried deep within the clothes for safety, so therefore can't be added afterwards).

I am actually writing this post Thursday night and setting it to a scheduled automatic posting on Friday, since I don't know if I'll have time. Saturday's post might not come until quite late. Maybe Sunday I can stop posting about travel since you're probably bored of that by now (if you're even still reading!).