It seems that I’ve survived yet another trip into that barren wasteland that is named The United States of America. The country always amazes me when I’m there. Labour Day sales were aplenty. My wife’s family were very gracious. It was a good trip for the most part.

There were a couple of days where I grew a bit restless since all that we did was sit around and watch television. However, we did get out a fair bit and see some of my wife’s friends. There were some familiar faces and a couple of new ones too. One of her friends drove all the way from Oklahoma to visit her.

Managed to see two films while there. We saw Extract and 9. I had high hopes for Extract but it didn’t come through the way that I had thought that it would. I may need to watch it a few more times once it is available for download on DVD. One the other hand, I was rather impressed with 9. The story was interesting and the animation was pretty incredible.

The trouble with traveling really has to do with the journey most of the time. Getting to and from a place can be rather arduous when trying to navigate through several airports and trying to manage different meals through different time zones. The trip to St. Louis had a snag in it and there is an issue that we are still dealing with now that we are back in Bermuda.

On the way to my in-laws’ house we had a stop in Philadelphia. We were then supposed to travel to Dulles and then to St. Louis. Unfortunately, through a fault of time management we missed our flight to Washington DC. It seems that I changed the time zone on my phone to Central thinking it would be good to have the final destination’s time in there. But I forgot that I had done this. So, while sitting at our gate, we watched everyone board our flight. There was no real announcement about the boarding. Hell, the sign at the gate didn’t even display our flight, or any flight for that matter. So, stranded, we made our way to the US Airways desk to see if they could help. We had missed a United flight but US Air was our first flight. They were very helpful and put us on a direct flight to St. Louis first thing in the morning. We stayed at the Marriott at the airport and made it to St. Louis the next day.

The issue that we’re still dealing with has to do with our journey back to Bermuda. On this leg of the trip we flew from St. Louis to Chicago and then to New York before finally getting to Bermuda. Specifically the leg from Chicago to New York caused the issue. Apparently, there was a “special guest” at the JFK airport where we were going. This caused a backup for the arrivals going there. We were an hour and twenty minutes late, which happened to be the exact amount of time we should have had to wait at the airport for our next flight. So, we made it to the gate in JFK just as they were calling our names for final boarding call. Of course, if we just barely got to the gate in time, that means that our luggage didn’t stand a chance. So, we reported our baggage as missing when we got to Bermuda. We should have been able to retrieve our luggage yesterday but a customs officer has decided to withhold our luggage because he thinks that we did not declare everything properly.

Firstly, I’m rather upset that our bags were searched by Bermuda Customs without either my wife or myself being present. Secondly, we declared absolutely everything. Thirdly, we now have to wait until Thursday when the customs officer is back on shift in order to go and show him all of our receipts. I find this incredibly inconvenient. I’ve been without my luggage for days now and I have one more day to go. But once I’m able to all the way back to the airport, I’m going to be harassed by some muppet of a customs officer who probably thinks I didn’t pay enough for the items I purchased during one of the biggest sales of the year. I can’t wait to see who this idiot is so I can have his badge number and make a complaint against him to his superiors.