May 28-30 May 31 June 1 June 2 June 3 June 4 June 5 June 6 June 7 June 8 June 9 June 10 June 11 June 12	Wednesday, June 12 The alarm was set for 4:30 am. I got up at 4:20... We finished packing. Breakfast this morning consisted of a banana apiece swiped from the buffet yesterday morning without tea or coffee. We went downstairs about 5:20. The car is to pick us up at 6. So, we checked out and settled in to wait. A Mercedes minivan showed up five minutes later. Yup, he was for us. Swiss efficiency! So, we loaded up and headed for Zurich. He said it would take an hour. One hour exactly (and 10 tunnels) later, we were at the airport! Despite heavy traffic in places. However, airline check-in didn't start until 7, so we people-watched for about half an hour. European check-in headed for the States is complex. First Delta does a preliminary passport check, scanning passports and asking simple questions – the type a casual acquaintance would, like where do you live, how long, what was the favorite thing about this trip, how did you arrive in Switzerland, etc. All pre-coffee/tea, so some of the answers were hesitant. Needless to say, we passed. Then it was on to the ticket counter to check bags and get boarding passes. We didn't need any pre-printed ones – they would have been discarded as they missed one key phrase. We got our tickets using just the passports. They are the key to everything!!! We were soon on our way to the next gateway. Literally. You have to use the boarding pass to get through a set of gates for the next document check. This was the regular TSA type bag check. There was no Precheck line. However, things have loosened slightly. Cameras and computers needed to come out of bags, but Carl's CPAP could stay in, belts could stay on, shoes can stay on, light jackets could stay on. I noticed that he hesitated while scanning my camera bag until a visual check showed that that pocket contained a stack of lenses with metal caps on both ends and my spare lithium batteries. Send it on down the line! Onward! Down a set of escalators to Passport Control for one more passport scan and stamp. Then more escalators to the train that takes us to the Gate E area. One train ride followed by two long escalators back up, down a long hall and we are now sitting just outside the gate area for our flight. Time for coffee, tea, and a bite of real food... We had a short wait in the waiting area for the snack bar to open. Carl got his coffee and something that looked like a breakfast burrito without the beans. I got some tea and a pretzel roll (yum!). The plane loaded on time, but what a mess of confusion! Line up here. No, line up there. No, we're not ready for your group yet. Yes, we are. No, we're not. Arggggg! And the announcements for which zone was loading was a hand held sign. Regardless, we were soon seated – bulkhead seats, which put the touchscreen monitors about 6 inches out of reach for me and unreadable for either of us... Once we were airborne and the seatbelt sign was off, I selected the first Harry Potter movie and proceeded to run it over and over until we were about an hour from landing. That way, when I dozed off or the airline made announcements, I wouldn't miss much of it. We had a headwind most of the flight, so turbulence was a problem. I'd read during the calm parts (with the movie running in the earbuds) and doze or watch during the rough parts. The flight attendant was sensitive to my no lactose requirements, so meals were interesting... I skipped a good portion of my Caesar salad as the lettuce was weird and had flakes of cheese too crumbly to scrape off. And it had an oil and vinegar dressing instead of Caesar. That was about noon Swiss time and would be my last real meal until Thursday morning breakfast, after we got home. Other than that, the 10 hour flight was uneventful. We soon landed in Atlanta and began the maze of security, customs, and passport control at this end. Other than confusing directions (and the crying children), it wasn't too bad. Although, I had to laugh on the train ride to the gate area. The announcer on the train was bragging about the high efficiency the airport has achieved. Well, that may be, but the government part of the airport and the required rechecking of bags process were anything but... We had a couple of hours in Atlanta before our next flight. So, once we found the gate, we got a couple of beers and decompressed. Where did all these people come from???? The whole airport was crowded. Soon it was time to board the last flight and head for Denver. Another fairly uneventful flight – except for the screaming kid during the descent. Evidently no one told its mother that a pacifier or bottle or thumb is NECESSARY for the descent phase of a flight... We finally landed, reclaimed our luggage, and found the pickup point for the off site parking. A van came by very quickly. We had seen one leaving as we approached the pickup point, so we thought we'd have a 20 minute or so wait. Nope. Just 5 minutes. And the jovial driver soon got us to our car and tossed our bags into the back of it. He handled those two fully loaded cases as if they weighed nothing instead of the just under 50 pounds each. He really earned his tip. We were soon on our way home. The offsite lot we had chosen was efficient and convenient. The road leading to it needs a couple of 4 way stops replaced by lights, but otherwise, just it's just fine. We got home a little before 9 pm Denver time. That was one long day.