Day 28 (May-31, Tuesday) Going Home

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Today we bid farewell to jolly old England. Travel time to the airport, along with some paperwork to avoid paying VAT taxes, plus the usual security checks and being certain to get to the airport in time, all resulted in a 5:30 start for this morning. We gain 6 hours on the clock once we get home, so we are going to be tired by the time locals are having lunch. This 30-hour day doesn’t have the same appeal as the 25 hours days during our cruise last Fall.

We had everything packed and had a arranged for a cab at 6:15, so we got started fine – EXCEPT that the elevator was turned off and we might have had to lug the bags up the stairs. But the Desk Clerk was able to get it running and we checked out on schedule without any other hitches. The cabbie got us to Heathrow without any trouble and we were able to deal with all the exercises without any problems. The security checks in England cover a lot more topics and they quiz you pretty seriously before allowing you to check your bags or get through the security checks. But we had no problems.

We got a little breakfast with most of the rest of our Pounds, but still had a few left over. Then there was just the wait for our flight to be called. Since we were using Frequent Flyer Miles, it has been a small worry what our priority would be if there were volcano problems or our flight got cancelled for some reason, but none of that happened and we took off tight on time.

The flight was a Boeing 777 so Janet was happier than if it had been an Aerobus plane. It was a nice plane (not as comfortable as the Eurostar trains) but better than an old 707. They served a lunch and a snack during the flight, so American Airlines gets some points for food. They also have individual entertainment screen on the back of each seat so everyone can watch or listen to what they want. Janet found a collection of games to play and couple of TV shows. David watched a movie and listened to music. But for the most part we monitored the progress of the plane as it gradually scrolled across the map of the Atlantic.

Almost all the tours we took last Fall included the use of something called whisperers (little radio receivers and you listen with ear plugs). David was never able to hear very well and the ear plugs made his ears hurt before long. So before leaving he bought a pair of headphones to use. It turned out that only one tour used these things, so only once did David get to use these headphones. However he did use them on the flight and they were comfortable.

Before landing, they came around and asked for donation for UNICEF of any foreign currency you did not want, so we through in our little coins. If we go back to UK someday, there will only be 3 pounds to get us started.

We landed a few minutes early and got off the plane fairly quickly. Janet did not have any trouble, but David’s ears would not pop for about an hour, so he was even more deaf than usual. Immigration was easy with our passports, but when we went to claim out baggage, only one of the 2 bags was on the turnstile. It turns out that some other people must have been connecting to St Louis and had a tight connection, so the bellhop had pulled off any St Louis bags for them to grab quickly. That included one of our bags which we did not discover until everyone else was gone and they started looking for our bag. We found it eventually.

After transit to another terminal, we had plenty of time to sit at the gate to wait for our flight. This was reminiscent of last fall’s flight, but we did not have others with which to reminisce about our great experience. Janet did get to call all three of our girls to tell them we were back in the states. The flight to St Louis was uneventful. We were very grateful for Valerie and Tessa to pick us up at the airport (yes the baggage did not get lost or suffer any broken parts) and take us home. However it was after midnight (London time) so we could not spend much time visiting as we were really tired.

We had a wonderful trip. Janet’s knee is getting better (not going to get her to the head of the line around here) and we will work to over-come our colds. It is going to take a little time to adjust to the change in time zones, but that will happen fairly soon. We have a car trip planned to Colorado and Oklahoma in August but our next cruise is not scheduled until a year from September (don’t know if we will get the travel bug again before then or not) and we will try to post a blog for that one also.

David has about 1500 photographs to go through and he wants to insert a few of them in each day of the blog. We will post one final update to let everyone know when those pictures are available, but please give him a little time to complete the job.

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