Family Circle Cup--the return home

We arrived at the airport in Charleston around 11:00 this morning, and were directed to the checked baggage security line. While I was standing there, I looked behind me, and there was Virginia Ruano Pascual, former doubles world number one, and half of the finalist team in Charleston. We chatted with her for a while, then had to get our baggage inspected. Ruano Pascual was on her way back to Spain before beginning the European clay court season. She is quite beautiful, though no one talks about it because she is a doubles specialist and not a long-legged blonde.

We boarded our plane around 1:00, and there, already seated, was Patty Schnyder. Normally, I wouldn't talk to a celebrity on a plane, especially one who had just suffered a heartbreaking loss. But she had waved at us every day because we had put the banner up for her, and quite a big deal had been made of the banner, so I decided to take the liberty of saying a few words to her.

The rest of the trip was a disaster. Our flight was late because of a mechanical check, but we made it, with much rushing, in time for our connecting flight. But the airline had overbooked and given our seats away. We then had to hang around a couple of hours for another flight that was going to Mobile, only it turned out to be an hour late. When we landed in Mobile, we had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get our voucher to take a taxi to Gulfport, about an hour away, and then we had more than an hour's ride home.