Our flight home wasn't until the afternoon, but it was from Madrid, which was a long drive away. So we got up at 4:00 AM (!) and hit the road.
Along the way, I took one last picture. Many times during the last two weeks, I had seen these mysterious billboards in the shape of a large black bull, with nothing written on them:
I had no idea what, if anything, they were advertising. But they were all over the place. In fact, one of our guidebooks had a picture of one of these bulls on its cover. So I knew they had to be something significant.
When I got home, I did a little Internet research and found the answer. The billboards, known as Toros de Osborne (w), originally advertised brandy made by the Osborne company. When a law was passed outlawing billboards along highways, the bulls were scheduled to be torn down. But there was so much public protest - the bulls had become a sort of unofficial emblem of Spain - that they were allowed to remain standing, but with no writing on them.
We came dangerously close to missing our flight. First, I made a wrong turn coming into Madrid, and had to drive for a while before I found a place to turn around. Then I passed the airport, and had to turn around and go back. Then I had to search for the car rental return. Then I had to find a place to fill up the gas tank. Then I had to find the rental return again. Then we had to take a shuttle to the terminal, which turned out to be somewhere across town - not really, but it seemed like it. Then we checked our luggage, and it took another shuttle and a long walk to get to the gate. We made the flight with minutes to spare.
Terry often gets annoyed at airports, when they offer to push her in a wheelchair. She says "I'm blind, not crippled!" But this time, as sick as she was, she elected to take the wheelchair. And by this time, I was beginning to get sick myself. It was a LONG flight home. And there was cloud cover all the way, so I couldn't see anything. I wasn't happy.
Then we had another three hour layover in Dallas. By this time, I was really sick. I tried to take some ibuprofen, but instead of taking it with water, I tried to take it with hot chocolate. Dumb. I scalded my tongue so bad, it hurt all the next week.
While waiting at the Dallas airport, I took a picture of this sculpture:
A giant wishbone in the middle of the airport lobby. I'm not sure what that's supposed to signify, but there it is.
We finally got back to L.A., and when we went to pick up our luggage, we had to answer some questions. It seems the Department of Agriculture has a dog - a beagle - that sniffs incoming luggage, looking for forbidden plant products that people might try to bring in. Well, when the dog sniffed our bag, he got very excited - because he found the little bit of leftover dog food we were bringing home!
Terry was still riding in a wheelchair, so now I was pushing Terry's wheelchair with one hand, and a luggage cart with the other hand. That's awkward under the best of circumstances, but as bad as I was feeling, it was even worse. Terry felt sorry for me.
We took Super Shuttle home, and got there late at night, having been up for over thirty hours. We were exhausted, and we were sick, but we had had a wonderful time.
I have one last picture. When we were in Sevilla, and I was walking back from the Flamenco Museum, looking for a taxi to take me back to the garage to pick up Terry, I saw this church. In the combination of twilight and street light, the building looked particularly beautiful. And although normally I am, at best, an indifferent photographer, I got lucky with this shot. I think this picture, more than any other, captures the beauty and mystery of Spain. And after this picture, I think no more needs to be said:
