ISRAEL - Caesarea, packing up and heading home

(Mosaic from a floor in Caesarea)

30 Mar, Wed - Fortunately, Bob had been loaned Michael's IPad and was able to find a Wi-Fi source in the condo. Once Bob had his and Heckler's seats, shortly after 0700, he let me use it. We were already assigned seats for the first leg and I couldn't see an easy way to change them so we went with 13A and 13B even though they were just barely forward of the wing. For the long flight we chose seats way in the back but just two seats together, not a row of three. I also signed up for four checked bags (our three plus one of Mike's, still free for us) but it wasn't until later that Bob told me they needed us to take a fifth bag. I couldn't change that online so we would have to wing it when we got to the airport. Bob tried getting something resolved about upgrading Mike's seating so he could lie down in First Class, but nothing could be done until he had his x-ray at Rambam Hospital later in the day.

We finally got out with Caesarea as the destination since Bob and Mike needed to spend time with the Apco guys. Mark suggested that we could be dropped off at the National Park to do a tour of the ruins. That worked well - we had a couple of hours at least to walk around the combination 1st century Herodian hippodrome and theater, and later Roman, Hellenic, Crusader, and Muslim ruins. We attended two multimedia presentations and scrambled around on the beach below one of the bars.





When B & M picked us up Bob checked with Moishe about weather and determined that it was too north even for Mevo-Hama - anyway probably not worth the 1.5 hr drive. Instead we went back to Arsuf (where it was indeed too north and blown out) so C.J. could get some more flower photos.



Then we hit the usual falafel stand for our last local lunch and returned to the condo to begin packing up our wings and gear on the front lawn out of the wind. We heard from Mike that he had been grounded; that British Airways would not let him on the plane for 14 days. Looks like he gets to stay with Rahelli for another couple of weeks. Later we went out to the park to watch the sunset and C.J. and I took a walk along the promenade to the north in a cold wind while B & M had a pizza at a cafe. Back at the condo we stacked our packed luggage up for a 0330 start and went to bed shortly after 2000.

31 Mar, Thur - My cell phone alarm went off at 0230 and I showered before lugging the packs down to the van. Bob slept through his alarm and I had to call him at 0315 which meant that we weren't going to get out at 0330. But 0345 was early enough since we didn't get too lost finding the Eldan rental car return - thank goodness for the GPS Yariv had loaned us. At Eldan we unloaded everything and loaded it onto the shuttle by 0500. Security at Ben Gurion was not as onerous as we had feared - perhaps the letter from Apco helped smooth the way. At the check-in counter all but one of our bags had to be piled on a cart and taken to an elevator as they were too big for the conveyor belt, I guess. Then we cleared Passport Control and went to our gate. We did not have long to wait and started to board at 0625 in no order. We were pleased to find that our seats were in the World Traveler Plus section (2-2-2) with seats that reclined and had footrests plus more legroom. There was only a bulkhead to our rear so we could recline all the way without crowding the people behind us. We didn't really need the bread and cheese in my pack because we got a good breakfast/brunch while those in Coach got only a blintz. No clue why we lucked into those seats.

When we reached Heathrow we just hung out in the main departures hall in Terminal 5 until our gate was posted at 1400. Then we had to scurry to the shuttle to get to Terminal 5B and we arrived as the boarding was well underway. The four of us were way in the back - only one row behind us -but it was a "twin" seat and there was still room for our roll-aboards in the overhead storage. When we took off there must have been some big turbulence because we were whipped back and forth pretty wildly - I don't think it was just because we were all the way in the rear. We got a hot lunch, drink and wine, and later a sandwich just before we landed. There were some views through the clouds over Scotland and remarkably over Iceland, then brief views over the Can. Rockies and the San Juan Islands. All the luggage arrived safely and Michel met us in his van for a quick trip to Bob's then home for an early-to-bed. We needed the rest after 24 hours of moving gear and flying! Whoo-hoo! What a trip!