The Bear's Progress
SkeptoBear's trip to James Randi's Amazing Meeting 2004
Day Fifteen
Going home!
The day dawned sunny, but cool. The group's pleasure at the fine weather was tempered by the knowledge that this was the last day of the great adventure, and it was going to be a very long day indeed. Even if everything went well, it would be more than thirty hours before they could relax in their own beds. The bags were packed, the broken souvenir cocktail glass from Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Bar in Las Vegas was reverently placed in the waste bin, rooms were checked for unpacked items (remembering the Palm PDA charger still living under a bed at the Magic Castle Hotel in Los Angeles). A last visit was made to the Internet Cafe downstairs to see if any emails had come in from family members saying things like "We have won Lotto". The packed bags were left with the hotel concierge for storage until departure time, and it was time to do some shopping.
Anyone with children who has ever travelled without the children will be aware that there are certain things which absolutely, positively, essentially must be purchased on the overseas trip. These items are always inconvenient to pack and carry, so the purchases are always left until the last minute rather than bought early (and cheaply) and transported through multiple airline security checks. This is how the group ended up touring computer games and electronics stores looking for games and gadgets. SkeptoBear was quite enthusiastic about this as he is a regular participant in online, multi-player carnage games. He had been up during the night again using the Internet to play, and his friends had told him that new versions of Eviscerator, Loot & Plunder and the Teddy Bear's Picnic had just been released. (The last game has a picture on the DVD cover of a gore-spattered bear wearing a hockey mask and carrying a nail gun.) As soon as the group walked into the Games Workshop The Bear was telling everyone how to do things but the staff soon calmed him down by getting him to rearrange the peasant-burning pyres on a table-top layout of Feudal Theocracy.
The next stop was an electronics store to buy some weird gadgetry with a purpose only known to adolescent boys. Conveniently, this store also had a replacement charger for the Palm, so that problem was now solved. To make things even better, the store had a DVD section and there was a Jimmy Buffett concert DVD on special which was just the thing to replace the broken souvenir glass. The store attendant made some half-hearted joke about "Would a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt be a Jimmy Buffett fan?". SkeptoBear mumbled something about bears and woods but most of what he said was drowned out by the initial notes of Stairway to Heaven coming from the guitar department and the anguished cry of a store attendant shouting "Stop that! Can't you read the sign?". This DVD buying experience was much more successful than an earlier trip to the Virgin Megastore which had huge 
signs on the outside of the building advertising specific hard-to-get movies and staff on the inside who could not speak Australian and didn't know where anything was anyway.
Lunch was taken at a very nice casual restaurant, but the reality of this being the last day was brought back by the fact that the restaurant's top house wines were Australian chardonnays. It is very easy to get homesick when home is almost in sight. Near the restaurant was an amusement arcade with one of those machines outside the door which are full of stuffed toys for players to grab with a crane and keep as prizes. SkeptoBear tried to amuse everyone by banging on the outside of the machine and shouting "Free the bears", but his heart wasn't really in it. All business except going home was now done.
Or was it?
With only a couple of hours to go before the shuttle bus picked up the team to go to the airport there was not much time to do anything except sit in the hotel lobby and read books. Except that a cursory glance three doors up the street showed that, wonder of wonders, the tattoo place was actually open for business. The pros and cons of the possibilities were discussed. The pros were that the parties would have tattoos showing leopards and lizards. The cons were that, with the prospect of sitting in an airline seat for a thirteen-hour plane flight ahead, there were certain parts of the body where it was probably unwise to have a tattoo done that afternoon. The pros were that there were many other possible placements on the body. The cons were that there was a slight risk of infection. The pros were that this risk was very slight indeed and they would be home in time to go to the doctor. The cons were that there could be an allergic reaction to the tattoo inks. The pros were that this hadn't happened last time, and in any case anti-histamine tablets could be bought at the Wallgrens shop on the corner. Finally, SkeptoBear demanded that everyone stop going round in circles and make a decision. And what was that decision? The answer to that is a private matter between the tattooist, the potential tattooees and their respective spouses. The Bear has been sworn to secrecy.
At last the shuttle bus arrived, the bags were on board, and the team was on its way to San Francisco airport for the first flight of the day. Remarkably, they were
through security and into the terminal with plenty of time to spare. It was a bit early for an evening meal, but there was discussion about having one last seafood meal before leaving San Francisco, a discussion prompted by the sight of a very well presented seafood restaurant. It was finally decided that there would be free food and drink available in the Qantas VIP lounge at Los Angeles so there was no real need to spend money for more than a coffee. The time before the flight was spent using the wonders of modern technology to change the wallpaper on the main computer at Ratbag Castle in Sydney to show a picture of a pensive and homesick SkeptoBear looking at the Pacific Ocean beyond the Golden Gate Bridge with a message saying "We are coming home".
The plane flight from San Francisco was about as eventful as everyone would like a plane trip to be, which is totally uneventful and unexciting. The fun started in Los Angeles.
It is not a short walk from the United terminal to the American Airlines one where the Qantas planes depart, but as the time was only about 8:30 and the plane didn't leave until midnight there was no hurry. The group set off for a leisurely walk and then a mobile phone rang. 
It was a message from Qantas saying that the departure had been delayed for an hour to 1am. As this news was being digested the other mobile phone went off with the same message. "Oh, well", said one of the party, "there is even less rush now". Ten minutes later the urgency had been reduced even further by messages saying that the plane was now leaving at 2am. When the group finally made it to the Qantas check-in counter they were offered handfuls of dollars to wait until the next day and catch another flight, but the options of sleeping in the terminal or trying to find a hotel were both thought to be not worth the money being offered. They were then given a voucher for $7.50 each to buy food and told to check their bags in over there. At "over there" was a really rude person who was determined to make life difficult ("Don't put your bag there, put it behind the yellow line". "That's better". "Now move the bag back to where you first put it".), but nobody who really wants to get onto a plane argues with security people these days.
With the bags checked it was time for the Qantas VIP lounge and the free food and drinks. The $7.50 vouchers were mocked slightly, as there was no possibility of needing them. Wasn't there just? The Qantas VIP operation at Los Angeles is run by American Airlines and they don't seem to have grasped the concept of the Qantas Club. 
There was no food except for some crackers and rather tired-looking sandwiches with unidentifiable fillings, passengers had to pay for their drinks, and the one place in the entire airport where the Qantas $7.50 vouchers were not accepted was the Qantas VIP club. To add to the misery, it was discovered that somewhere in the air between San Francisco and Los Angeles the laptop computer had been zapped by cosmic rays or something and it was now an ex-computer, had joined the network invisible and had ceased to be. SkeptoBear suggested hurling the useless thing through the window onto the tarmac and then trashing the rest of the room, but he was finally convinced that this would be unproductive. A foraging party was sent out to locate some food and nourishment, but unfortunately the only place open was Burger King so the party had to make do with burgers and fries. Still, it filled a hole.
And what can be said about the flight home? The service and food were up to the normally high Qantas standard, the movies and other entertainment on the little screens in the seat backs were down to their normal standards, the flight was downhill on the map. But best of all, the flight was going home. It had been a very enjoyable trip, but now it was time to rejoin families and friends in the real world. SkeptoBear had developed a taste for travel, however, so this might not have been the last great adventure.
Home at last!
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