Bahamas! Part 4: The lonnggg journey home

When we docked in Miami on Friday,
we had several hours to explore the city before we needed to catch our plane. 

We just hadn't had enough of the ocean, so we took a Miami harbor tour on this lovely pirate barge to take a "see where the rich people live" boat ride.

We sailed past Elizabeth Taylor's tiny 13 bedroom cabin, recently purchased for $42 million. 

We continued on to Jennifer Lopez's little bungalow. She has two other in Miami, just in cause she gets bored with this one.

Years ago I had several daughters who were sure Will Smith was going to join the church and marry them.  I'm including this picture of the Smith's Miami bay home for benefit of my sons-in law: 

 If you see this house, quickly steer your wife away to prevent her from breaking and entering and embarrassing herself (and you).

Finally it was time to catch our plane and head home.  Unfortunately, after boarding we sat on the tarmac for 1 hour 45 minutes-no explanation.  We had a really tight schedule in Minneapolis, and by the time we got there our connecting flight was long gone.  After rebooking a flight for early Saturday morning, we managed to find a hotel.

Since 50% of Delta flights were delayed that day due to a computer problem, hotels were in short supply. We thought about rousing the DeLongs out of bed to pick us up, take us to their house, throw us a glass of milk, and take us back to the airport. We decided let them snooze when we managed to find the last room in a nearby Comfort Inn.  The bathroom was bigger then our entire bedroom/bathroom on the ship 

and the bedroom was bigger then the whole ship.  We fell into bed(s) at 12:30 am, got a couple of hours of sleep and ran back to the airport.  The terminal was full of disheveled, disgruntled customers who had been unable to find a hotel room.

As for Stan and I, our flight was completely full and we were forced to take a free upgrade to first class.  It was tough.  We were swimming in leg room, sinking into padded leather seats, drinking from real glass cups, and choosing from a variety of candy bars instead of those bags with three stale peanuts. Not only that, but our luggage was marked "priority" and was first off the plane in Billings.  In addition we each got $100 voucher to fly with Delta again.  Life is rough.

Next:  Bahamas! Part 5: What Shelly was up to while we were chillaxing