The next morning, I woke up at about 6:30 and we were already in Miami. I only woke up because I needed to pee but since it was about time for use to wake up anyway, I figured I might was well take a shower now. My wife woke up after me and took her shower. We finished gathering all of our stuff and went over to have our last breakfast on the boat. We had to be off the boat by 9AM. We grabbed our bags and headed out. We had to pass through customs. I'm not sure why we had to do that in Miami since we just arrived from Key West which is also in Florida. We hadn't filled out a form yet so we got booted from the line and forced to fill out the form. We declared that we bought 3 children's t-shirts and the customs inspector asked me why I didn't buy anything for my wife in a joking way. I laughed and said, she couldn't find anything she liked. We started walking down the exit hallway and my wife wanted to stop for a second to decide what we were going to do next. The security lady forced us to exit completely even though there was plenty of room for everyone to walk by.

Our flight was set to leave at 3:40 PM and it was 9AM at the time we exited the boat. Some guy came up to me trying to get me to pay for a ride to the airport. I told him at least 6 times that I didn't need to be at the airport for at least another 4 hours. He said he could take us to the mall but I didn't want to walk around the mall with our bags. We decided to head directly over to the airport.

With nothing to do in the airport for the next few hours, we sat in Burger King and I started writing out my travel blog adventure for the last few days. We decided to make our way to the gate. First we had to go over to the counter and check in one of our bags and get our boarding passes. The first desk that we went toward was for priority passengers only so we got booted to another desk which not surprisingly had a huge line. American Airlines in their benevolence decided to send a group of us back to another desk with a shorter line. We check in, pay the $15 to check in one bag (rip off) and make our way to our gate with is D33. We go through security and they make you snake your way through miles of those pole with the retracting rails like at the banks. I tried to skip underneath one and the security agent gave me a dirty look so I made like a good little solider and followed the rest of the cattle. As we reach the security check in to have our bags scanned, I made sure to remove my belt, cell phone and camera prior to getting there. I pulled out my laptop and was ready to go. I noticed a woman who seemed annoyed and skipped over everyone, grabbed a tray, and went straight to the front of the line. I get a dirty look for just thinking about passing under the stupid ropes and this lady can jump to the front with no problem. After security, I gather all my stuff and put on my belt and we walk toward our gate. The first gate is D29. I think to myself, "Finally, we won't be at the gate all the way at the end since D33 should be pretty close by." I couldn't have been more wrong. Due to some construction at the airport in terminal D, we had to walk all the way through to the end of the terminal and loop back around.

We didn't eat outside of the gate because we thought that there would be plenty of places to eat inside the terminal. Wrong again. At most airports, there is fast food and a couple of decent restaurants. Sometimes, you can even find a food court. At this airport, there are a few California Pizza Kitchens. You would think that would make for some fairly decent food. They don't even have pizza. All the have is some cold sandwiches, wraps and salads. It's probably more like the food that you would find at a 7-Eleven. My wife gets me a Turkey Sandwich and I drink a soda which I got a little earlier. We still have quite a bit of time before our plane boards so we whip out the laptop and watch Speed Racer. It's a really stupid movie. My wife doesn't even bother to watch it. I only watch it because I am super bored. We still have 2 more hours before our plane is ready to leave. Hopefully we should be able to board in an hour or so.

Next time I fly, I will be much more picky about the airline that I fly. Airlines can't get away with treating people like they don't matter. I used to just choose the cheapest ticket that I could find but there is much more to it than that. Cheaper isn't always the best choice. Of the domestic airlines, the only ones that I have enjoyed flying on have been Delta and Continental. America West, American, United, all suck. Southwest is good for short flights but I don't think I would want to fly them on a coast to coast flight. I'll consider this a lesson learned. It seems as though this holiday season, we will be staying at home and having people come to see us making it easy to avoid air travel for a while. When I go to Europe, I'll get to fly a much better airline which much better service.

The flight was uneventful up until we reached the bay area. I could see the bay and the bridges and noticed that we fly around the bay at least 3 times. I was getting pretty annoyed. We could have arrived almost 30 minutes early but instead we had to circle around because of the wind. I know the airlines want us to all be safe but sometimes they get a little too extreme with the safety. Once we landed and I got outside, I noticed there was barely a light breeze.

We took BART and headed home. It took an extra 3 hours from landing to getting home. I really wish BART would have kept the train that leaves the airport going to Dublin\Pleasanton.

So that's the trip. I had a blast and I am sure I will do something similar again.