Day 117--Flying to Washington

18 December. En Route (by plane) from Las Vegas to Washington DC.

After 4 days with daughters, son, and grandchildren, I’m heading to DC on the last leg of my re-entry voyage before returning home to Libertyville on the 20th. Waiting in Washington is Haley, who will be performing Saturday and Sunday as the newest member of the U.S. Navy Band in their annual holiday concert at Constitution Hall. Should be a very exciting—and proud—couple of days. And they should be a nice way to mark the end of the 4-month (almost to the date) voyage.

The sea portion of the voyage ended, as expected, precisely at 0800 Monday the 14th when the MV Explorer’s crew tossed the guidelines to the stevedores on the San Diego Pier. Meanwhile, a couple hundred parents waved balloons, streamers, and hand-painted “welcome-home” signs from the dock, the harbor restaurant nearby, and the balconies of several hotels sitting opposite the San Diego waterfront. The 7th-deck and upper railings were packed with students, faculty, and staff watching the elated parents jumping and clapping on the shore. It was quite the festive arrival.

The convocation on Sunday was a bit long but appropriately formal and celebratory at the same time. Bob Chapel delivered a short but moving valedictory in his final official function as academic dean. One of the student speakers chose the event to orate on the need for fair trade and for listeners to look for goods made by people earning greater than slave wages—probably not the most appropriate topic for a convocation, but well-delivered. A second student spoke from the heart and to the hearts of us all, focusing on the risks he’d taken, the experiences we’d all shared, and the need, as he said, to “go through life not looking for happiness but with happiness.” Deans Byron and Nick said a few words, a lifelong learner talked about the voyage as a way of breaking out into a new life following the recent death of her husband, graduating seniors and all-A students were recognized, and our small choir, with the Communication Arts Department on tenor, sang a couple of tunes, including a terrific Scott DeVeaux arrangement of “Homeward Bound.” We all—all 500+ in attendance—ended the convocation singing a couple choruses of “Seasons of Love” from Rent, but with voyage-specific lyrics by Karen Barnes (“One hundred fifty-four thousand nine hundred minutes . . . of Fall 2009”). It could have been very schlocky; it was rousing . . . and moving.

The disembarkation was, in a way, emblematic of the logistics we’d seen throughout the voyage: partially remarkable for its efficiency, partially frustrating for the lack of some planning that could have made the process much easier and faster. On Saturday—2 days before arriving in San Diego—we had to have all but essentials packed in boxes and suitcases for the ship’s staff to haul to the 2nd deck, ready to be offloaded. I should clarify that the staff hauled only the faculty’s and staff’s boxes and suitcases; the students had to lug their own luggage to the 2nd deck because, we’ve been told, the crew had been somewhat downsized in response to the somewhat reduced size of the student body—and resulting reduced income.

On Monday, then, immediately after docking in San Diego, the local stevedores began unloading the more-than-2000 pieces of luggage—boxes, duffels, suitcases, golf clubs—and placing them in an adjacent warehouse for reclaiming. To identify our pieces, and to facilitate locating them in the warehouse, we were given colored tags to affix to each piece, with each group—faculty, lifelong earners, the various student “seas”—identified by a different color. The stevedores, then, were instructed to keep all similarly-tagged items together.

The first three groups off the ship were select students (all-A’s and a few others), tagged beige; the Andaman Sea students, winners of the Sea Olympics, tagged white; and faculty, staff, and lifelong learners, all tagged gray. Of course, the stevedores couldn’t tell the difference among the white, beige, and gray tags. So when we entered the warehouse to reclaim boxes and luggage and transport them to waiting shipping services, all bags for the first 3 groups off the ship were scattered throughout the two large rooms of the warehouse. Following 30 minutes of searching, I located my 2 book boxes in one corner, my larger miscellaneous box in another corner, my golf clubs in yet another corner, and my duffle bag in an entirely different room, all intermingled among items bearing white, beige, and gray tags.

A stevedore told us that the Carnival Cruise ship parked at the adjacent dock had disgorged 3,000 passengers and bags within 2 hours because they had used a number system to group luggage rather than colored tags—a lesson for SAS from the 100th voyage.

By 1100, I had reclaimed my boxes, duffle, and clubs, waited in line for 30 minutes for a porter to help haul them to the UPS truck parked outside the warehouse, turned them over to UPS, and jumped in a taxi for the 15-minute ride to the airport. I managed to get on an earlier flight to Las Vegas, and, by 4pm, I was surrounded by grandkids.

Flight’s landing. I’ll have to finish this final entry over the weekend. It just occurred to me that, landing at Dulles, I’m now about as far east as Norfolk, the port from which we embarked 4 months ago.

I’ve traveled around the world.