– Cambridge, England to Denton, Texas –
As you can imagine, I’m writing this from home, with my precious fluffy puppy at my side. She’s gotten quite hairy while we were gone. We normally shave her every six weeks, and she’s about two weeks behind schedule. She looks like an abominable snow puppy to me.
Our hotel with terrible parking at least had free breakfast, though it was not particularly enjoyable. It was more buffet-style than any of our previous breakfasts, and it definitely suffered for it. The yogurt was way too sweet, as well. Who can eat yogurt that tastes like candy? I was also sad because we didn’t get to run. We had the time, but the logistics of packing the sweaty workout clothes into our bags right before we flew out were… disagreeable to me.
On our way to our car, we stopped into a local catholic church to take some pictures. Mark’s braver than I am. He just walked right in and snapped some photos. I hovered awkwardly, because it made me uncomfortable. I felt the same way when we were taking pictures in Iceland’s churches, despite the fact that it was encouraged. Our parking turned out to be £11, which is much less than we were expecting. Thankfully the overnight rate was not nearly as high as the daytime rates. Eesh.
It took about two hours to drive from Cambridge to London, and we made it in plenty of time. We dropped off our car long before our noon deadline, then took a shuttle to the main part of the airport.
Our flight was already delayed by an hour, because apparently flights from DFW to LHR and back are never on time. We sat in the big, open waiting area of Heathrow for perhaps 3 hours, give or take, and had our last Pret sandwiches for our lunch.
At Heathrow, you don’t go to your gate until you are less than an hour from boarding, and once you are in the waiting area for your gate, you aren’t allowed back in again without surrendering your passport to the workers at the desk. It’s a little strange, and I didn’t appreciate it, since I really needed to pee. I’m sure you wanted to know that. Had I only known beforehand.
Mark convinced the flight attendant working the desk that we were simply too tall to ride in the regular seats, so we ended up with bulkheads. Our legroom was so roomy that my feet couldn’t even touch the wall in front of me. I love flying with that man. He’s very good at swinging an upgrade for free.
We made it back to DFW a short 9 hours later, and my mom met us at the airport. She’d dropped the puppy at our house, too. She’s an angel. Hi mom! So here we are, home, safe, and with our baby once again. Scotland was a lot of fun. Next time, English castles. Whee!
– Trip Total : 11,218 miles –
[ Quickie total tally: 75 miles (our hotel to LHR) + 4,737 miles (LHR to DFW by plane) + 37 miles (home to DFW by car) ]
P.S. I didn’t forget my Ripley treadmill promise. Here she is at the end of her workout, getting ready to cool down. That’s why she’s panting so much. Notice the total lack of any encouragement. She enjoys this stuff, my friends.
