Continued from Oaxaca Day 5.

Going back to Austin today after a nice relaxing trip. Really enjoyed the slower pace that we had here. I don’t remember the last time I had such a leisurely trip. Probably will take more and more trips like this as we get older.

Pulled up the airport map this morning to see if there’s dining or lounge options post security line. Well, this is just about the worst map in the world. I don’t know if I can even call it a map. It’s completely worthless.

Been snacking on these Mexican cookies these past few days. Delicious, but I’m sure terrible for me.

Last breakfast at the hotel. Of course, eggs divorced, it’s divine. It’s super rare for me to look forward to breakfast, but I look forward to this breakfast. RL loves breakfast so she really likes that I’m up and ready to eat with her.

Breakfast interrupted by a honeybee.

Go away bee.

After a while, we don’t see or hear the bee. Then I look in my OJ cup and saw that it had fallen in. Blah. Not only are you annoying bee, you are also dumb.

I spooned out the bee, but it was covered in sweet OJ. I gentled rinsed it off with water to give it a chance to dry and not have its wings stick together with the sugar. Good luck bee, I’ve done all I can for you.

Screen shot from my phone. I guess youtube TV doesn’t allow you to take screenshots on your phone? i was watching F1 on my phone, which took quite a bit of effort. I tried it on the laptop and even with VPN, I couldn’t get it to play. Finally was able to get it to work on my phone with double vpn and location services off.

Late morning, our taxi shows up to take us to the airport. It’ll be 300 pesos, so roughly $15. Not bad.

There was a third dog here barking nonstop at me beneath the door while we were getting in the taxi. Miss our dumb mutt back at home.

The building style in the newer buildings reminds me so much of Taiwanese buildings.

In a short time, we were at the airport.

Of course, they’ve got an agave garden here at the airport.

Got here about 3 hours before our flight, right when they opened up the line for us to check our bags. We flew here with carryons, but will be checking one bag with all the bottles of mezcal. Hopefully, we’ve packaged everything well enough and won’t have breakage.

Now we look for a lounge. Sucks, the lounge is pre security. Why would they do that?!

Pretty simple lounge.

Got some eggs and beer. But the real reason why I’m here is so that I can use their wifi to keep on watching the F1 race this morning on my phone.

We didn’t know how long security line was going to take, so we left the lounge after a while and came into the post security area. It’s crowded, and there isn’t wifi. Blah. Good thing  my Verizon plan works in Mexico, I can just use my high speed internet to keep watching the race on my phone.

Doubt they’ll serve any food on the flight, so gotta get something in my belly for lunch.

11 years!

Boarding starts on time.

Different seat than on the way here to Oaxaca, but my window shade was broken in the exact same spot as my previous seat.

Off we go.

There’s some fire. And there’s also Monte Alban right at the top of the little mountain in the center.

Monte Alban.

Oaxaca is in a valley, and I guess to gain enough altitude to clear the mountains around us, the plan actually made a couple of large circles immediately after taking off to gain elevation.

Passing over Monte Alban again, this time much closer to right over it.

Our hotel is located in center right of this photo.

I think we finally gained enough altitude to start heading in the direction towards DFW.

This is probably one of the smoke that I saw. Napped much of the flight.

As we got closer to DFW, I looked outside of my window and saw this track. Hey, I know that track, it’s MSR Cresson.

Another plane flying away below us.

I believe that’s downtown Fort Worth.

Some other downtown in the DFW metro.

Back in America.

And we walked all the way around the terminal to luggage claim. I don’t think it’s possible to take a farther route to the luggage claim from our gate.

To top it off, the escalator was broken. I had a backpack, so it wasn’t super bad. But for everyone with a rolling luggage, it sucked.

Went through customs, and dropped the bag off for connecting flights. Easy enough…except instead of dumping us back into the terminal, we were dumped back outside of security. Now, it means we need to go through security again, Doh. I guess they don’t trust the security measures in Mexico.

And of course, the line is super super long. Again, RL didn’t have TSA Pre so we waited in the general line. Good thing right when we got off the plane, we got a notification that our flight to Austin has been delayed by about an hour. Otherwise, we would be cutting it close with this long security line.

That’s a long line. Sigh.

After about 30 minutes, we got through the security line. Found our gate, and luckily enough, there’s a lounge that we can use right next to our gate.

And as luck would have it, the moment I got my drink and sat down, I received a text notifying that our gate has been changed. That itself would be just mildly annoying, but not only did our gate change, our terminal also changed. Blah!!! WHY!

I guess this means I’ll need to down this drink, take the skylink and go to a different terminal. Blah.

Terminal B reached. Found a restaurant to eat right next to our gate. They better not change our gate/terminal again. We got our food to go because we thought we’d be boarding soon. How silly of us. Boarding got delayed even more due to maintenance check finding that a tire needed changing and a few other things.

Our bar seating for the restaurant is literally right next to our gate. That’s nice.

This terminal sucks. There’s not enough chairs for everyone waiting to sit down so half of the people for this flight had to stand against the wall or sit on the floor. As the time inched closer and closer to our departure time, they came on the speaker notifying us that our plane needs maintenance. It needs a new tire, and it’ll delay us yet another hour or so. Screw it, I’m going to get some more food, some comfort food.

Comfort food. Who knows how much longer this delay will take, and the bbq plate I shared with RL just isn’t quite enough food.

Fat boy gonna fat boy. Hit the spot though. I always want Asian food as comfort food when I’ve been away on a trip.

After hours of delay, finally able to board.

Happy to be going home.

Leaving DFW. We were delayed so long that it’s now dark.

Beautiful sunset, but couldn’t capture well with phone.

In less than an hour, back in Austin. Baggage claim, hopefully my checked backpack doesn’t smell like mezcal. Fortunately, nothing broke!

To the parking lot, and then back home. Wonderful trip to Oaxaca. It was just about as wonderful as I hoped it would be. Kind of inspired us to explore more of the Americas in the future.