We woke up that morning and headed down to breakfast with the rest of the attendees. I didn’t feel hugely melancholy to be leaving this run, although it was certainly an intense experience. Mostly an interior journey, and not too much socializing, although the people with whom I did connect were all very nice and interesting.
I loaded the spanking horse back in bed of the truck, and we drove back up to the lodge, where I re-packed all of our things and loaded the bags into the truck. Finally, it was time to check out and say goodbye to the staff of the lodge – if you haven’t ever stayed at Timberfell Lodge, I can heartily recommend it. The new owners have put in lots of attention and money into fixing it back up into a desirable vacation location.
Mike drove the first half of our trip back home to Atlanta, and I the second, getting us back to Smyrna and you guessed it… a nice shower and a nap! The evening was spent relaxing, and going to this farmer’s market he likes, where we bought some lychee nuts. I’d never seen them in the shell before, so that was novel.
Dinner was at a Sweet Tomato’s salad buffet! I told you that Atlanta is a city of buffets, and I swear – just about every meal we had there was at some sort of a buffet restaurant. I’m not sure if that’s by Mike’s design, or what, but that’s how it turned out.
That night, I read the email from United about my flight the next morning, and I saw 10:00 departure.
Monday morning, we woke up with that in mind, and had a quick breakfast, then got me to the airport, where I walked up to the kiosk to get my boarding pass, and it said 06:55 departure. Uh-oh, a 10:00 arrival in San Francisco. So, the person behind the counter got me onto a 19:25 departure for Denver and from there to SFO. I called Mike up and he drove back out to get me, and on the drive back to his place, I telephoned 
mudcub, who was also in Atlanta and had sent me a text message the day before. It turns out that he was on the same return flight to Denver.
Once back at Mike’s place, he put me over the horse and strapped me for an hour for missing my flight. Also during that strapping, he discovered my head when restrained over the horse is just the right height. *ahem*
We finally did our first non-buffet meal at a nearby BBQ place. Ironically, though, we had the all you can eat baby-back ribs special! I had two racks and a salad, with a small sweet potato. Back to the house to get my suitcase, and it was time to head back to the airport.
I met mudcub in the concourse, and we had a beer and talked. Ended up sitting in the same row together after he traded with the guy who was supposed to sit with me. We had a delightful conversation together.
Once on the ground in Denver, we had another beer in the Red Carpet Club and then it was again time to board my next flight to SFO. A quick goodbye and then onto my flight.
Big John in San Francisco came and picked me up, and we had a late supper at our traditional late-night airport-pickup place, and then home, to sleep the deep sleep of the travel weary. My bed never felt so good as it did that night.
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