Finally made it back to California, the last time being about four years ago. Everything looks pretty much the same as usual. The drive down to Monterey from the airport which normally takes a little less than two hours took four hours because of massive traffic jams in the Bay Area.
Unfortunately, the US authorities would not allow Thea to board the plane, because of some minor anomaly with Thea's passport that Interpol had tagged as suspicious. This was a very traumatic moment, especially since I had to leave her hastily to catch the flight, giving her a quick kiss and emotional hug. Hopefully she can get the situation rectified and join me later next week. Welcome to the land of freedom!
From beginning to end, I travelled a total of five thousand plus miles in nineteen and a half hours. My mom thawed out some frozen raviolli and that was my dinner. Crashed in bed at eight and managed to sleep until five in the morning, whereupon I sat downstairs in the sitting room and read my book. So the jetlag is fairly minimal.
Cannot wait to go out and play some golf, although for the next week they've predicted cloudy weather and occasional rain showers. It's good that I brought four pairs of golfing shorts with me. Also would like to head on over to a couple golf stores and buy lots of fun stuff: fairway woods, flop wedge, golfing caps, towels, ad infinitum.
