Why yes, I do cry over lost dragons

I've finished resizing and uploading pictures from the final day, so I'll try to post those sometime yet today.

My flight landed in Raleigh around 10:40 last night. The luggage finally made it to the carousel around 11:20 and we headed home. Almost exactly at midnight, I walked into the bedroom to go to bed and about had a heart attack.

I confess, there are two stuffed animals who regularly share our bed. One is Pledge the Cow, a gift from Dave from a few years ago. The other is Figment, a stuffed dragon I bought at Epcot during a family vacation in the 80s. Since then, Figment has travelled all over the United States and Europe with me. He's my little travel buddy.

We can all see where this is going, right?

I walked into the bedroom and saw Pledge sitting on the bed and that's when it hit me: I was sure Figment wasn't in my backpack anymore. I ran back out to the living room and dumped the contents of my backpack and my duffel bag onto the floor. No Figment. The last time I remember having him for sure is Thursday night at the Hill Top in Kingman.

It was only 9 p.m. their time, so I called the Hill Top right away and was told I need to call back after 10 a.m. their time today and talk to housekeeping. I called the Rialto Wigwams and the Viceroy as well, just to be sure, and they said nothing had been found.

So I think he's in Kingman, Arizona, and I'm anxiously biding my time until it's 10 a.m. there and I can call.

Not only is this distressing because Figment has been my travelling companion for so many years, but I also have a bad habit of assigning human emotional capabilities to inanimate objects. So even though Figment is just a pile of material and stuffing, I imagine him out there in Arizona wondering where the heck I am and why I left him behind and it makes me all sad. After we got into bed, I had to have Dave remind me that Figment isn't wondering where I am because he's not real.

So everyone please pray/keep their fingers crossed/send good vibes that Figment is, in fact, safely in the care of the housekeeping staff at the Hill Top and that he'll soon be making his way back to me in North Carolina.