Day 17, and we were ready to go home – more ready than in any vacation before. But let me add this: In no way should our eagerness to go home be construed as a failure of Egypt to please us, nor as a failure in ourselves to appreciate Egypt. It is simply that we had seen and done so much, and had been so overwhelmed by the enormity of it all, that we were desperate for down time to distill, to reflect, and to remember – in the context of the familiar rather than one of daily upheaval. Contrary to our own concerns, and the siren warnings of others, it was not our bodies that were exhausted, but our minds.

Pepper, and her health problems, have been on our minds since we learned of them three days previous. The last news we received was that things were looking better and a new medicine had been prescribed, and we both fervently hoped to find her in good health upon our arrival at home that afternoon – but we still had two flights, two countries, fourteen hours in the air, and two-and-a-half on our layover, before having any information.

So we found it very easy to get up at 4:15 AM to get ready for our planes to Atlanta. And unlike the returns from the U.K., Italy, Switzerland, and Mexico, there was not one single moment that I wished to delay our return.

Our last experience in Egypt was yet another baksheesh argument: A guy met our cab at the drop-off area and offered to take the bags in. He asked if we were flying Air France, and presented himself as knowing what to do, so I let him take the bags. He started putting them on a conveyor into the secure area, where I could go only with a boarding pass (which hadn't been printed yet). I pointed this out, and he said, "It's okay," and continued. I grabbed out luggage off the conveyor so we wouldn't have to go through the hassle of asking the agents to bring it back around to us. Then he started asking for baksheesh, and I told him I wasn't going to pay him a penny since he took our luggage to the wrong place and didn't listen to me when I told him it was the wrong place. I still don't know if I'm the asshole for holding people accountable, or if he was the asshole for delivering shoddy service. And it drives me crazy that I have these arguments, and endure this frustration, for LE 2 (35¢) – but that's real money here, and I just don't want to reward somebody who's more interested in what they can get than in what they have to offer. (There were a lot of people in Egypt who delivered great service, and whom I paid well; they just don't get much press in this report because it's uninteresting to describe things going well.)

CAI EN  Cairo International Airport  AR  مطار القاهرة الدولي
4 Hours, 50 minutes
CDG EN  Charles de Gaulle International Airport  FR  Aéroport Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle

CDG EN  Charles de Gaulle International Airport  FR  Aéroport Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle
9 Hours, 10 minutes
ATL EN  Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

I had really been looking forward to Air France, as I have long heard the service is superb and the food is unparalleled. It was a good airline, but it did not live up to these expectations. The Airbus 330 was fun in that we got the really good seats that had 180° reclines and all sorts of enjoyable features – including the ability to pull a view from a camera mounted on the bottom of the plane looking down. (I happened to pull up the view just as we were passing from the coast of Africa to cross the Mediterranean.) The food on Air France, however, was generally not special. And the breakfast they served us was gross – properly prepared, I'm sure, with quality ingredients, but unsavory in the result; I think it had cabbage.

I did like Air France – honestly. But to give credit where due: the best service, experience, and food was, by far, on Czech Airlines.

I wrote the following on the plane:

This draft is being written at 34,000 feet over the Labrador Sea. Subsequent revisions may see substantial editing to this portion (or its removal in its entirety), but for now I feel equal parts privilege to have made this journey, and to have such a wonderful life in Atlanta waiting just (as I watch the flight-progress screen with bated breath) 1,959 miles, or 3 hours and 21 minutes, away.

At the Atlanta airport I was put through an odd search: On the customs forms, I had disclosed contact with livestock (all those camels and donkeys), so it was not too surprising to me when I was diverted with my luggage and Billy's to the agricultural inspection station. But it seemed odd to me that Billy was not selected to join me (and his luggage) for this inspection.

Odder still was that the inspector showed no interest in agriculture, but instead rifled through my souvenirs and challenged me on my vacation itinerary: First he looked at the countries visited and said, "Why would anyone want to go to those places?!" (My response: "Who wouldn't?!"). Finding my souvenir cloths with the Names of God written in Arabic, he asked, "What is your practicing religion?" – which I guess was a legal question in this environment, but which I found inappropriate nonetheless. (In his defense, he did worry about showing proper respect to the religious souvenirs in my backpack, and asked me for guidance as to how they should be handled.) Even though I had been instructed to take both my backpack and Billy's to the inspection, he didn't want to look at Billy's – which was a nice change, I suppose, as Billy's pack had been searched in just about every airport we passed through and he was getting sick of it; too bad he wasn't standing beside me to enjoy the experience.

But even as he treated me with distrust, he did so to his own disadvantage: More in an effort to hurry things along than anything else, I started to point to a pocket he had missed. He waved me away, saying "I'll handle this" – but then he missed that pocket and a couple of others.

From beginning to end it was meager national security at best: if I were hiding something, it wouldn't have been hard to obfuscate it simply by claiming the other backpack. And if there had been something to hide in Billy's pack (if he had even chosen to look in it), he wouldn't have had Billy present to hold accountable. I suppose the NSA's defense might be that the agent was trained to gauge my reaction, and that he would have picked up on it if I had been trying to conceal something, and would have acted accordingly. If this is true – and that is a big "if" that I do not necessarily stipulate – I feel certain that they could achieve the same effect while following procedures and engaging in discussions that do not come across as ignorant, contemptuous, buffoonish, and inadequate.

But all frustration was forgotten when we made it back to the house to a joyous reunion: All three dogs, including Pepper, met us at the door – bright-eyed and bushy tailed:

Our Welcoming Committee From back to front: Pip, Prince, and Pepper

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