We got dressed and shoved the last of our stuff into our remaining carry-on bags, then went upstairs for one last breakfast on the Lido. It was pretty crowded up there, but we were able to have a couple of fresh omelets made, and we made our way outside to the Lido patio, where there were plenty of tables available. Tatiana stopped by our table on her way past, and we said goodbye for the second time, then finished our breakfast and went back to our cabin to wait to be called for disembarking.

It was here at this point that I took this photo of my darling, still-not-feeling-well, exhausted from too much fun and too much head cold wife. She's still mad at me for taking this picture, in case you're curious... :)

Partied out?

We had to be out of the room by 9:30 so the stewards could clean it for the next round of excited passengers, which in this case would not be coming on board for a couple of days. You see, this was the Miracle's last regular run for a couple of weeks. After we departed she would sail around Florida to Jacksonville, where she would be one of 5 cruise ships to be used as floating hotels during Super Bowl XXXIX the following Sunday. So while they were in their usual 'rush to turn over the ship' mode, it wasn't as frantic as it can usually be.

But rules were rules, so we wept silently to ourselves as we said farewell to our balcony room. Ta-ta, balcony. Sniff.

But before we could leave our cabin, there was the little matter of settling up our Sail & Sign / Drink & Sink tab. Fun comes at a price, and while the lunches on board may have been free, there's definitely no such thing as a free raspberry daiquiri. So in our little mailbox ("tree mail", as we referred to it) was our final statement for the week's charges - tips, excursions, a few cocktails, photos, dinner at N&Ns, and the gift shop stuff. It was pricey, but right in line with what I expected. If we agreed with all of the charges, it'd be automatically settled and charged to our credit card. Since everything appeared to be in line, we took our copy and called it good.

CD Steve asked that as you were waiting to debark if you would please wait in either the Phantom or Mad Hatters lounges or in one of the other public areas; just not parked right in front of the doors. So we went down to the Fountainview cafe, which was still open (hooray!), and I bought Mary an iced coffee to have while we waited for the announcement that we could debark. The ship has to be cleared by U.S. Customs before anyone can get off the ship, which means that all non-American citizens have to show up for a Customs inspection early in the AM. If they don't show, nobody can get off. Well, we heard the purser's desk paging a few people, but soon it seemed that everyone had done their Homeland Security duties and we'd soon be allowed off the ship.

Sure enough, CD Steve came over the intercom at about 9:30 AM and announced that they would start disembarking with those who have early flight times. (You had to show your flight reservations to the purser's desk the night before to get special luggage tags for this - so no cheating.) They then called for debarking of those in wheelchairs, and we sat in the Fountainhead and watched a stream of about 80 electric wheelchairs and scooters go by, looking a lot like a parade of little funny Shriner cars again.

At about 10:00 they started calling for debarking based on the color of your luggage tags. If you have blue tags, you could now debark. A few minutes later, green tags were called, then hot pink, then orange, then yellow, then silver, then red...

We had gold tags. And so we waited. And waited.

Now, it's like this. Every deck of the ship is assigned a different color tag for its luggage - our deck, Panorama deck 8, had two colors - Gold for the forward cabins and black for the aft cabins. And it didn't take us long to realize that they were emptying the ship deck by deck, STARTING WITH THE BOTTOM.

Well, since we were on the top passenger deck, I got out my crossword book and Mary skimmed through an old copy of Entertainment Weekly while we waited for our turn to get off the ship. Finally, at about 11:30 CD Steve called for us to debark. So down to Deck A we went, scanning our Sink & Drink cards one last time through the scanner, and onto the pier we went.

It was time to catch a bus to Terminal #2, so that's what we did. They loaded us all onto coach buses, and a few minutes later we were driving through Tampa on our way to where we should've been in the first place.

Here's a sad fact of life in these United States, and one that we almost forgot about while we were at sea. Cell phones don't work in the middle of the Big Blue Sea (Yet. Let's all hope it remains that way), so for the better part of 7 days we were blessed to not have to hear people carrying on pointless coversations on their cell phones all the time. "Hey, what're you doin'?" "Nuthin'. I'm at Wal-Mart. What're you doin'?" and the similar ilk. But here we were back on terra firma U.S. of A., and the cell phones were out and blazing.

And nowhere on this planet were the cell phones being worked like they were on our bus.

In the seat in front of us were two women from somewhere deep in the South whose cell phone rang literally (I'm not kidding here!) at least a dozen times - probably closer to 15 - during the 10 minute ride. The rest of Kentucky Mama's party had already gotten off the ship, and were already waiting at the terminal for the two of them to arrive. The kids were fighting, the grandparents were cranky, and Kentucky Mama was threatening to "whomp y'all upside the head" as soon as they caught up with them at the pier. No, her husband was no damn help at all. No, they wouldn't all fit in two regular cabs; they'd need a van. No, junior can't sit by the window. Yes, I'm gonna whomp y'all.

We knew this because she yelled it into the cell phone as loud as she could. Add to this the running commentary her daughter in the seat next to her added to the conversation (her comments were mostly about the whompin' them youngins were gonna git) and the loud shouting coming back over her phone that we could all hear (mainly angry kids and frustrated grandparents, it seemed), we all knew everything about her world. Thank God we'd soon be out of it.

But the worst part (!) had to have been her cell phone's ring tone. It was a loud, obnoxious tune, like something you'd hear at a third-rate Russian circus. Since her phone would ring almost immediately after she hung it up, we got to enjoy this song many times, because she let it play until almost the end EVERY TIME before answering it and threatening her children with the beating of a lifetime. Yep, welcome home!

So there you go. The miracle of modern innovations meets a Kentucky Mama who wants to whomp her kids. Is it any wonder I hope and pray that someone will soon invent a personal cell phone scrambler that blocks cell reception within a 50 yard radius?

Anyway, we finally showed up at Terminal #2, and made our way off the bus (and away from you-know-who). We quickly found our bags, then went over to the Customs agent, ready for our official re-entry into the United States. It went like this:

Agent: "Hello, sir. May I have your declaration form?"
Me (passing off our paperwork): "Sure."
Agent gives it the once over: "Thank you. You can go ahead."
Me: "Thanks."

That was it. Five seconds, and Mary and I were free to move about the country. I guess we didn't look like a security threat, and the guard dogs hadn't smelled anything in our bags that set off their puppy noses. (Not that they should have found anything that could be considered "contraband" - I had no Ciban cigars and definitely no Mexican pot pipes or the stuff they put in them... Mary and I are good, law abiding American citizens; don't forget that.)

We made our way out to the corner, where the taxi stand was. There was a line for cabs, so we waited for a couple of minutes for our turn, and the next cab that pulled up stopped to talk to the guy in front of us. The driver asked the man where they were going, and he gave them some address in the Tampa area.

The driver then walked away from him, came to us, and asked where we were going. "The airport," I said. "Get in," the driver told us.

So here we are, stealing this other guy's cab, at the insistence of the driver. Meanwhile, the other man is arguing. "Hey! This cabbie refuses to take us!" But before he could find a port authority officer to complain to, our bags were in the trunk, Mary and I were in the back seat, and we were on our way to the airport.

I felt kind of bad for the other guy, but it wasn't our decision - the cabbie apparently didn't feel like going to wherever it was he wanted to go. And from the NASCAR-worthy speeds that the drive drove that cab to the airport, it was pretty obvious he was intent on one thing only - get us there as fast as he could, collect our $20 set rate, then get back to the pier and pick up some other couple headed to the airport ASAP.

And drive fast he did -- being a Sunday morning in downtown Tampa the streets were fairly clear, and he made full use of all lanes as he swerved and drove 70 miles an hour down the city streets. Mary and I just sat in the back seat, held on, and tried not to think of it. Wow, if this guy ever wants a job as a NYC cabbie, he's got the motions down pat.

We got to the airport in near record time, that's for sure. But why the huge rush? It was only 12:30, and our plane wasn't scheduled to leave until 6:50 tonight. We had plenty of time to kill.

Ah, but I had a plan. Continental had a flight out to Houston that was scheduled for 3:15. Could we maybe get bumped up to an earlier flight? I would've booked this earlier time originally when I bought our tickets, but the tickets were $40 more apiece for it. So we went and asked the "friendly" Continental ticket agent Barb ("Bitchy Barb", as we soon referred to her behind her back, of course) if there was anyway we could go home earlier. Please?

After being severely chastised by B.B. about how full the flight was already and how the connecting flight in Houston was also packed and why didn't we just use the automated e-Ticket machines like everyone else and how our bags may or may not make the flight and on and on..., we finally were able to get a pair of standby tickets for the 3:15 flight. Thankful to get away from B.B. before she blamed us for the rest of the world's sorrows, we made our way onto the Tampa International mini-monorail and headed to the gate area. Goodbye, Tampa. See you real soon.

The rest of the trip home was fairly uneventful. So let's just summarize it like this:

1. We made it through the TSA inspection without any hassles. I had to take off my shoes and belt beforehand, but that's all the disrobing that was necessary. The x-ray screeners both smiled and said, "Oooh - I see bottles and disposable cameras - must be coming off a cruise!" We just smiled back and secretly wished we were still on the cruise instead.

2. We had a boring lunch at Nathan's Hot Dogs near the gate. The fries weren't nearly as good, and there was no ice cream.

3. We did make the earlier flights, both in Tampa and in Houston. Both planes were packed to the gills, and Mary and I had to sit in different rows (I gave her the window seats and squeezed into the middle seats both times). By this point we didn't care - just get us home.

4. One of the flight attendants on the first flight had apparently been nipping a wee bit too much on the ol' plastic surgery bottle, if you get my overly-stretched, Botox-injected drift. She had a seriously scary 'Joan Rivers' look going on; like someone who didn't know when to quit when she was ahead. Yikes.

5. We got to Omaha at about 10:00, where it was 35 degrees and there was a little snow on the ground from the day before. Stewarts picked us up, I paid off our parking debt (remember, I saved a whole two bucks! Whoo-hoo!), then we were on our way up the Interstate towards Sioux City. A quick stop for gas, a dash through Mickey D's, and two hours later we were back home.

6. And that was that. Our real lives quickly returned, as we spent Monday catching up on laundry, paying the bills, unpacking, and petting two lonely cats that had apparently felt really neglected over the past 10 days. We had to make our own meals again, and nobody turned down our bed for us. (Reality bites, you know?) Mary went back to work on Tuesday, and I sat down and started writing this monstrosity. A few days later I had her cold, full blown. Mary recovered quickly enough though, and took good care of me while I was ill. I'm just glad that I didn't have to go into a 'refreshing' river while sick like she did...

So there you have it - 10 fun-filled days of vacation bliss. It was thrilling, but exhausting at the same time. Yet if given the opportunity, Mary and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

Wouldn't you?