We made it home just before midnight, too tired and too hungry for the usual “Huzzah for home!” public sentiments. I was not, however, so tired as to have the terrible “Am I more hungry than tired? Or more tired than hungry debate?”

Throw a soup in the microwave, unload the car, eat the soup while fending off the angry/relieved cat who is demanding, in equal parts, all of your attention and all of your soup. The common post-holiday tale.

Before all of that, though, my mother-in-law’s friend came over for a multimedia presentation. It seems she is interested in visiting Peru at some point in the near future. It just so happens that my lovely wife has just returned from Machu Picchu. She took a lot of great pictures, which you can see here. They camped on the Camino Inca Inca Trail for three days, working their way up to the 15th century site. The short version: Beautiful, great, hardest thing she’s ever done.

I think she talked the family friend into a Peruvian vacation. Check out those pictures and you’ll want to go. And the good news is, you can just take a train ride direct to Machu Picchu. But if you do, the hiking campers may judge you. Or so I’ve heard.

We hit our favorite little Italian restaurant after the slideshow, here’s my best girl now:

Back to the in-laws’ home, then, wrapped up the backing, loaded the car and off to visit some more people. Hugs and kisses and more assertions that “You should come visit!” and then off to the airport.

The holidays always bring about the strategic planning of what to bring and what to ship. What is the temperature differentiation? What am I going to need right away? When we checked in both of our bags were just under the 50-pound limit. Hers was 48 and mine was 49. We’re getting good at that. I carried a smaller roller with most of our presents inside.

At the security checkpoint I met a new TSA agent who still cared. He was conversational, but quiet. He had the patter down, but the patter didn’t yet have him down. While he waited on the pat down scanner to make sure my jeans weren’t explosive, he said he changes gloves for each freedom grope. The way he said it suggested that wasn’t the protocol. I asked him how many he goes through a day.

About 140, he said. And that’s his job.

So the real winners here are those glove manufacturers, and the people advertising in the bottom of the personal belonging trays.

Some shots from the plane. I’m guessing this is either Plymouth Meeting or Lancaster, Pennsylvania. But you can’t really read the street signs at night:

No idea where this is:

And this is coming into Atlanta:

So we landed and everyone demonstrated their zeal to leave the plane by standing up immediately. That took a good long while — it always does when you stand up while the plane is still on the runway — but then off the plane and down to the airport tram. We caught that just as the doors opened. We made it to baggage claim just as our 50-pounders where falling down the conveyor belt. We walked out to the shuttles just as ours was loading up. An Army veteran took credit for making the driver wait for us. The shuttle was full, I stood in the aisle with the luggage, but we got back to the hotel we used as a park-and-fly. The car was there. We loaded up and turned right to the interstate and then headed home with open, clean, dry roads rolling off into the inky night.

It was an easy trip home, then, wrapping up a nice trip away.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about one of the new books I got over the holidays.