My keynote presentation on the U.S. history of Wilderness Education seemed to be well received and I was showered with gifts including a samue (traditional clothing), sandals and sensu (accordian fan). I gave out gifts of balsam pillows, Lake Placid Olympic pins and some of my maple syrup. It was great fun.

So, what were some of my observations of Japan? First, the people — the folks I met were warm, helpful, enthusiastic, friendly and polite. When I walked into the venue as volunteers were setting up for my presentation, they stopped their work and broke into applause. Many came up to me and thanked me for my presentations and asked for my autograph. They were incredibly patient when, with my severe hearing disability, I struggled to understand their heavily accented English. They would slowly try again and eventually I would exclaim, “Yes, Yes, I get it now.”

The trip ended too soon.

Then the adventure really began — getting home. My trip to Japan had been long, but smooth. The return trip was really really long but certainly not smooth.

I arrived at Tokyo’s Henada airport at about 11:30 a.m. for my 3:45 p.m. flight. It was supposed to be a 13-hour direct flight to Washington, D.C. Grueling, but worth it to get home quickly with minimal connections. Once I got there I had about two hours before I could check my bag. But it was no problem: I never go anywhere without plenty of reading material. I always have the complete works of Mark Twain and a bunch of Lee Child novels on my Kindle. After finishing a Jack Reacher story titled “Tripwire,” I checked my bag, went through security and customs, and got to my gate. Promptly at 3:15 they started loading the plane.

Everything went smoothly until it was time for take-off. We left the gate and were parked on the apron for about an hour. I was eager to take off, but I’m a patient guy.

My patience was tested, however, when the captain finally apologized for the delay. “The wind has shifted, and we have been assigned a new runway. Unfortunately, we’re too heavy for this runway, (I’m guessing the runway was too short) and we will have to remove some of our cargo to use it. Don’t worry, we won’t be removing your luggage. We’ll be removing commercial cargo.”

An hour and a half later the captain came back on and said, “It looks like the wind has shifted again and we’re going to use the original runway. I apologize but it looks like they want us to reload the cargo.”

Finally, eight hours after I arrived at the airport we took off. As we flew toward our cruising altitude, I just wanted to try to get some sleep. My eyelids were heavy and my mind foggy. I couldn’t even concentrate on Barbie, the in-flight movie.

I used to be able to sleep on a plane, no problem. In my old age, sleep on planes comes in spurts, if it comes at all. Finally, I dozed off and dreamt of summiting Mount Fuji when suddenly I was rudely awakened by the pilot.

“Sorry folks, but we have more bad news. We are limited to how many hours we can fly. If we fly all the way to Washington, D.C. we’ll exceed that number. We have to stop in San Francisco to switch crews.”

A collective groan from the 200 passengers went up, but fortunately no one got hostile. Seven hours later we arrived in San Francisco and spent another hour and a half switching crews and who knows what else. Too tired to read, all I could do was watch bored passengers pace the aisles and watch in-flight superhero movies.

What was supposed to have been a 3:15 p.m. arrival turned into a 10 p.m. one. Adding the time for getting our luggage and going through customs, I would have had as good a chance of getting to the moon as Saranac Lake that evening. I was practically sleepwalking at this point feeling hungover and spent.

United Airlines put us up for the night. I finally got to my motel room at 1 a.m. and set my alarm for 5 a.m. so I could get to the airport to catch a morning standby flight to Burlington. That’s right, I got a restless four hours of sleep so I might get a flight to Burlington. If I didn’t get on the morning flight my next option was 10 p.m. — 13 hours later.

At 5:30, I stumbled out of my room and pressed the link on my phone for the Uber ride to the airport. According to my phone, my driver was waiting for me at the motel office. I got to the office within 30 seconds and no Uber driver was waiting for me. Then my phone lit up with the message, “Your current Uber ride was canceled because you weren’t there.”

“Hell,” I thought, “What else can go wrong? Now I have to find another way to the airport.” Necessity being the mother of invention, I chatted up the people around me and learned they also were going to the airport. They had better luck with Uber than I did so I caught a ride with them. I got to the airport at 6:30 a.m., checked my luggage, went through security and got some breakfast. By now I’d been traveling for 35 hours with four hours sleep and could have starred in “Fear of the Walking Dead.”

I found my gate and sat down hoping I’d get on my standby flight to Burlington. I stared at the monitor and every 20 seconds it flashed the names of the people on standby and every 20 seconds my name was on the top of the list. Finally, 15 minutes before boarding time, my name flashed green, indicating I was confirmed. I was too exhausted to celebrate. I texted the family the good news and before I knew it I was greeted in Burlington by my son Ben and granddaughters Hazel and Autumn.

Two hours later I was home in Saranac Lake, where I crawled into bed after 40 hours of travel — a day late and 160 Yen short.