The Pursuit of Leisure Don't expect too much, and you won't be disappointed.

Back home.  Woke up at 4:30 a.m. to catch my 7:30 flight back to Texas.  Customs was on the departure side, which was tedious.  The declaration form had to be filled out before checking into my flight, so while I stopped at the kiosk to fill out the form about 10 people queued up in line... without filling their forms!  So the line was slow until the airline employee asked if anyone had actually filled out their form.  I raised my hand and then had to navigate through the maze of suitcases and people who didn't want to move out of the way in the slightest.  Stood in line behind for 10 minutes behind these Colombians who were filling out visas and then told that they had 16 pounds of excess baggage and could not pay for it and had to get rid of it.  Ouch.  Finally while waiting in line an employee started printing out luggage tags and tagged mine, and once I got to the customs line for Americans it was much, much better.  I can't tell you how great it feels to be an American coming back to the U.S. when you see all the other international travelers in their queues with finger scanners and cameras.  Passed by the full-body scanners too,  Once I got on the plane it was smooth sailing.  Goodbye cool weather and sporadic rain.  Hello hot hot HOT weather and stronger rain.

Vacation was definitely good.  Not as adventure-filled (i.e. expensive for activities) as last year's trip to Australia and New Zealand but overall I had a really good time and I would definitely recommend a trip to any of those places.  Good food, great views and lots of sightseeing activities.  A long weekend is enough to get a good feel for each of those places.  Back to the daily grind tomorrow morning.  Hopefully it won't be over a year until my next trip.  Thanks for reading!