Our flight arrived in Amsterdam almost two hours late. Fortunately, our original layover was to have been a little over 3 hours, so just made it to the departure gate in time for the security checks began. (In Amsterdam, security checks are done at each gate rather than at the entrance to each concourse.)

Ready to leave the gate in Amsterdam

Our flight for Johannesburg left at about 11 am. The only time we could see the ground below was a view of the Sahara desert – sand for hundreds of miles around!

We arrived at the Johannesburg airport right on schedule at 9:15 pm and made it through immigration in record time. There was some type of camera in the immigration line that was used  for screening for ebola. We had to take off our glasses for that. We picked up all our bags and passed through the customs area even more quickly – no one was even there to check baggage!

Gottfried and Neal we there to met us after we went through customs. They had driven the mission Toyota Condor which had plenty of room for both us and our luggage. Mark got his first experience of riding in a vehicle on the left side of the road, although we think he was too tired to notice.  Within 15 minutes, we were at the TWR office in Kempton Park and settling into two rooms of the lodge for visitors located on part of the second floor.  After about 36 hours with little sleep, we were fast asleep a few seconds after our heads hit the pillow!

We drove to Chicago to catch our first KLM flight to Amsterdam departing at 4:10 pm . Allan accompanied us (Virginia, Mark and me) to drive our car back to Elkhart. The amazing thing was that all seven of our suitcases just fit into the trunk of little Toyota Echo!

The flight from Chicago to Amsterdam was on one of KLM’s Boeing 747s.

We passed through security quite easily and quickly.  We boarded the plane on time, only to sit for two hours at the gate while a mechanical problem was corrected. We were told that it was one of the air conditioning systems and that one of the engine housings had to opened to fix it.

Finally, we were on our way a little over two hours late!

Mike arrived at the apartment to pick us up just before 4am, shortly after the peak of the storm.  About 17 inches of rain had fallen at Anderson Air Force base at the north end of Guam, with about 8 inches falling at Agat where we were.  The transmitter site had even less, with no wind damage and the power stayed on all night.  The peak winds were around 40 miles per hour on the way north to the airport.  There was some water on the roads, but no major flooding on the roads to the airport.  We made it there with plenty of time to check in ahead of the rush of travelers arriving on the hotel shuttles.

Our first flight left on time for Hawaii and arrived on schedule on the late afternoon of July 30.  This was quite an accomplishment since we left Guam on July 31 about 6am!  [Remember, we crossed the International Date Line!]  The flight from Hawaii was also on schedule and we arrived in Chicago only a couple of hours after leaving Guam (according to the clock).

Almost 22 hours (only 8 hours according to the clock) after getting on the plane in Guam, we arrived at the South Bend airport and was met by Joyce and their three youngest children. We tried to catch a flight from Chicago that was three hours earlier into South Bend, but were told that it couldn’t be done, because we had checked baggage. So what happens? When we waited for our checked baggage at the South Bend carousel, it never came. Upon checking with a ticket agent — they had our checked baggage in a back room. It had arrived on the earlier flight!!

It is so good to be back home!

We woke up this morning and found it was raining and the winds had picked up quite a bit.  As we packed, we kept close track of the developing typhoon.

As viewed through a slightly open shutter, the papaya tree next door served as our wind speed indicator!

As we listened to the forecasts, it was encouraging to learn that the predicted anticipated peak winds were decreasing a little, but the rain kept coming.

The parking area in front of the apartment was covered with water. Fortunately, the apartments below were still dry.

The road by the side of the apartment was flooded.

As evening came, the electricity remained on and the predicted anticipated peak winds had decreased further to about 50mph.  We went to bed fairly early confident that we would have little problem making it to the airport.  Our ride was scheduled to pick us up around 4am.