The Trip

I was up at 5:30 on Sunday to get ready. Heather was there by 6, and we were gone by 6:30. I won't go into detail about how hard it was to leave my animals. I still don't know what's going to be done with them long term, and it still breaks my heart. My mom didn't come with us, so we said good-bye at the house and it was really hard.

I drove the first leg of the trip, back to DC for the 4th time in as many weeks. Dad and Heather helped me carry all my bags in and get them checked. The lady was confused by my ticket, the machine wouldn't automatically print it out, and she didn't know why I only had a one way ticket. I had to explain the visa and I was moving and eventually she found someone who could do it for me. The 48 pounder came in at 51.5 and I moved the only thing out that I could that would fit in my backpack, and it was 51 pounds. She marked it as overweight, but took it without making me pay for it. I just did not have any room left to negotiate space...

They walked me to the gate to security, where just 2 weeks before I'd had to say good-bye to Nid. It's weird, this wanting to be somewhere else so badly thing... You want to be there, but that doesn't mean you want to leave where you are. Sometimes it's hard to work out in your own head and I have to remind myself of that or the guilt or something will eat you up. We said good-bye and I had to turn and walk away. I was a bit sick to my stomach at that point. It was hard, but I was so happy too...

The rest of the trip was uneventful. Security and lines and waiting around. My seat was the last row of Economy Plus, which means that I got an extra 5 inches of leg space. And it was nice! I'm going to remember how many rows there are on that type of plane and try to get that again when we travel back as a family to visit. I chatted with a couple of people around me. A lady who was visiting her daughter who'd married an Englishman 2 years ago and moved here then. Another lady was English living in the US but was coming back to visit her dad who'd taken ill. It was a nice distraction.

I arrived at London early, even though we'd had to circle a few times. It was just about 10pm when I cleared customs, which was no hassle at all, a relief to be sure. Nid was there at the gate with his friend Martin, who had come over for the wedding. It should have take an hour and a half to get home. But they'd closed parts of the interstate down for construction, being late on a Sunday, and we sat in traffic for ages! It was nearly 2 when we got home. Tired and with all my heavy heavy bags to lug up the stairs. It was wonderful though. The kids had stayed at a friends house for the night, so we didn't have to get up in the morning, thankfully. I'd had 3 or 4 nights in a row with 4-6 hours of sleep, and I am use to 8-10. I was exhausted!