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I headed back home on Saturday. I made sure I had extra time to get to the airport and through security. It turned out that was a wise decision. Although the line through security was short, I got to spend extra time with the security people.

Because the Heilman box holding the pastels looks very suspicious in the Xray machine, and although I had pasted a photo and note about the contents on the outside, I was pulled aside. Besides the normal body scanner, and quick pat down, I was ushered over to the search area. They opened the Heilman box, did a swap of it and my hands to test. Something beeped on the machine, so then they had to search ALL my belongings and send them through the Xray machine again, while a female officer did a FULL body pat down. Everyone was very nice and I completely understand, but I let them know that in June with the big pastel convention, they will be very busy with all the pastel boxes going through security!

The flights were uneventful and I was never so happy to smell Ohio rain and see spring green! New Mexico is a high desert and very dry. My nose was very stuffy the whole time I was there. I also had trouble adjusting to the 7000 ft elevation. It took a couple days to get over the fatigue and headaches. And once home, it took about a day to get comfortable back at 900 ft. I've taken a few extra vacation days off and will return to work on Thursday.