Before I begin my last part, I wish to talk about the South Coast Plaza (http://www.southcoastplaza.com/). It touts itself as the only premier "shopping resort" and it even has valet parking. The fine folks at the Hilton Costa Mesa has complementary shuttles to South Coast Plaza and it was wonderful to visit there after years in the Hoosier State. It was fortunate that Nordstrom's has their half-yearly sale. Good clothes at a good price! A side note: I went into this certain store near the Nordstrom's end and it was swanky. I looked at this 990-dollar sweater that yours truly cannot afford and this sales lady came by and said that it is 60 percent off, and it's now "only" 360 dollars. And she and I both giggled at that. Comedy gold.

And now, the third part. We packed away our stuff and made an very early wake-up call, for we wanted to leave at 2:15am for the 6:30 flight to LAX. We hired a SuperShuttle for that. As we are waiting, there was a New Year's party with people going home and then, some families returning from Disneyland. The bellhop told us that the hotel was 60% full and everything was lowkey as this is a business-oriented hotel. After checkout, we waited and see the people going out and in, and then the shuttle arrived and picked us up. The shuttle went around Anaheim picking up more people and then we were in LAX at 5:30am. Luckily the rain is gone, and nothing was flooded that night.

At 6:15, we checked at the Delta Self-Service kiosk, and it asked us it we wanted an earlier flight to ATL instead of CVG. I declined (it's a good thing I did) and the tickets got printed. It turned out that we got the random "SSSS" and I pointed that out to Mr Theologian. After a thorough check, we got into the gate area.

At the gate we waited for the counter to open so I can see if we can get an upgrade. It turned out that there were plenty of F seats available and bought two upgrades at $150 each. Best $300 spent, as it was roomy and the Hubby is a tall chunky fellow with back trouble. He hates flying Coach with a passion and he had never heard of purchasing upgrades before. He is now sold on that.

After the hot towels, we ate breakfast, a cheese omelette with fresh fruit, potatoes, and a cranberry muffin. Very good. Then we relaxed the whole way. Mr 3000 was the inflight movie, though I only watch a little of it. After arriving at CVG earlier, we rested and then went to Concourse C, where the small town airplanes are. Nothing eventful, and it seemed that CVG was getting back to normal.

We arrived in Fort Wayne in less than 30 minutes, and after picking up the suitcases, I found out that the the ATL to FWA flight was cancelled (due to bad weather I presume), so it was a good thing that we stuck to the original plan.

We both had a great time in California and we look forward to coming back for visiting the family and Orange County. But never again during the holidays!