Days 141 Through 143: Cancun To Seattle

All good things must come to an end... or so goes the saying.  I say that's a load of crap.  One good thing leads to another, I had an amazing bike tour of the real Mexico from top to bottom, and I wouldn't trade any of the experiences I had for the world.  It ended at just the right time... I was excited to see my family and move on, and at the same time, I was already thinking about the next trip and the next adventure.

Disassembly and packing the bike for the long flight home.

All boxed up!

Gonzalo and his dad, also named Gonzalo!  We had an awesome time at the new planetarium in Cancun!

Clearly, getting our picture taken with the "don't bring these things on the plane" guy was the best and most fitting last photo of the trip! 

Kudos to Airtrain / Southwest for being extremely bike friendly.  Their advertised $75 charge for the bike box was the same as for any other overweight or oversized luggage, and they did not try to double charge me or give me any grief for having packed some luggage into the bike box.  At 77 pounds, my bike box was far from light!  They also went above and beyond the call of duty when I arrived in Chicago with a wet disintegrating bike box... they radioed up from customs to alert the checkin that I would be zooming up there, and they were ready to go with a huge packing tape dispenser and helped me mend my box for the second leg of my trip.  Karma was on my side as I had great company on the flight... the conversation was so engaging I didn't have time to be worried about the box.

Plenty of time for a pre-flight drink, even with some last minute shopping and having to find the receipt for my tourist card for customs (by the way, keep that sucker in your passport with your tourist card if you do a land crossing and give it to the airline people when you check in to avoid the "Leeeeaaaaann Ohhhnneeeeiiill please come to gate 5."

Amazing sunset from the plane.

Thanks to the lovely folks at the Midway Southwest counter and well, uh, TSA, it basically made it!  Thanks to my big brother for picking me up at the airport and helping me lug this mess around.

I'll TSA credit for taking the time to actually tape it up really well.

It feels good to be home... I'm too busy relaxing and enjoying my family, but I'm sure some deep thoughts and ramblings about my takeaways from this trip will follow in the not-too-distant future.