Coming Home: I Forgot About This Part

I know I have more to write about my last day (and more pictures too) but I want to get this all down before the memory fades.

I was up quite late Friday night packing and cleaning.  It's amazing how much stuff one can accumulate in a week.  I was multi-tasking and trying to finish uploading pictures of my last day as well.  My last soak in the bathtub never happened.  I woke up a bit late in the morning and decided to take the Paddington Express to to the airport. It was much faster and more comfortable than The Tube (not to mention cleaner).

Getting to the terminal was interesting.  Once I got my boarding passes and checked my bags, I had the world's longest airport corridor to navigate before reaching my gate.  As it was early and I had not had my coffee, I accidentally got into the wrong seat on the airplane.  Luckily, I was only one row back where I should have been and the lady who had the seat I was in just graciously took mine.

We had just departed the gate when the airplane reversed course and pulled back.  It appears that someone on the plane took ill and we had to let them deplane.  This also meant that they had to go into the baggage hold and pull their luggage off as well.  Of course, we lost our "slot" to take off and had to wait for another one.  We were an hour and a half late taking off.

On this flight, I got to see the rest of Harry Potter, The Deathly Hallows Part I and How Do You Know? Snoozed just a little in between reading my new Pride and Prejudice vampire book. Pretty uneventful...

Landed in Detroit and went through the fun that is Customs..which resulted in my missing my connecting flight (as well as about 80% of the other people on my flight as well).  So, got in another line to rebook that.  Of course, there were no more direct flights that day to Roanoke AND the only remaining flights were through my favorite airport (sarcasm note here) Atlanta.  Got that re-booked, re-checked my bag...and took my $20.00 meal voucher up to the terminal to get some lunch...which included a large beer.  Thank you Delta.

The only cool thing is that the flight from Detroit to Atlanta was almost empty.  I had a row of three seats all to myself! Finished my vampire book and landed in Atlanta, where I had to go from one end of terminal A to the train, which took me to terminal C.  ALL the way at the end of terminal C, I found my gate...then went back for some Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  Settled in at the gate and watched the board like a hawk because we all know how they like to play gate Russian roulette in Atlanta.

I had to get my new boarding pass there as I did not have a confirmed seat.  On the plane, I found out that my seat was next to the toilet, not to mention in the back row so I couldn't recline.  Silver lining is that the flight was only 55 minutes long.  Finally got to Roanoke....but the adventure did not end.

The baggage seemed to take forever to get to the baggage claim area.  Keep in mind that this is a tiny airport with one terminal, two baggage carousels, and we were on a teeny plane which wasn't that far from the baggage claim area. Of course, mine was one of the last bags off the plane.  Dragged it out to the car and loaded it up.  Got in, turned the key....

AND THE FREAKING CAR WOULDN'T START.  Oh, I forgot to mention earlier that my crackberry battery died, despite the fact that I had it turned off all week while I was using my UK phone. So I had no phone, no access to the phone numbers in my phone, no US change for a pay phone (a huge pile of British two pence though), and a buttload of exhaustion.

I was able to get enough of a charge to my phone from the car charger to pull a friends number of of the crackberry, so I headed back to the terminal.  I asked the guy at the taxi stand if he had change and he let me use his phone, but I had apparently copied the number wrong (of course).  The nice man at the taxi stand informed me that the guys at the parking area gate were in the possession of a "jump box" and could jump start my car....so out I headed again.

As my car is newfangled, it took the nice man awhile to find the battery terminals among the plastic doohickeys under the hood of the Buick.  I was happy to discover that the issue with my car only appeared to be a dead battery when we got the car to start with the jump box.  I need to think about buying a new battery now, it seems...but I will have it checked out this week.

An hour home in the dark while exhausted is a lot of fun...arrived home to a ecstatic cat and hauled in the bags.  I took a quick shower and dropped off to sleep around 1am.

Whenever I go on an extended trip, I have a nightmare trip home....