And so we come to our last day in London.

There’s not much to do at this point…make sure the flat is tidy, make sure we have all our stuff, make sure we haven’t left anything in the washing machine…the usual. We make a weird breakfast out of whatever food we have left, and then Uber off to Heathrow. While I have every confidence that I can *get* to Heathrow using the Underground, I have no desire to try it with my luggage in the rain.

Our Uber is timely, and off we go to the airport, where I promptly fail security.

I knew we would have to go through regular security on the way out of England, because TSA Precheck means nothing to these people, nor should it. But that’s okay; I have my little detachable bag of liquids. I can take my ipad out of my backpack. I know what to do.

Except that they don’t want you using any liquid bag but theirs, and I learn that from the insanely polite TSA (or whatever they call them in England) guy, who fetches me the correct bag. Apparently I’m not the only one who has this problem, because there are dispensers of these bags everywhere and the nice man is fetching them for many of us as he worked the line.

And then I fail security again, because I forgot I had a little travel size of Purell in my purse, and that throws me into the ‘politely pick apart everything she owns’ line.

We meet a lovely British couple who are on their way to Vegas. They tell us to always fly in and out of Gatwick and avoid this mess at Heathrow.

I survive the line, and Dad, Interrupted and I find lunch (wisely, I avoid the fish and chips), snacks for the plane, and cruise through Duty Free and buy some more chocolate. We discover that you’d better get your oversized American ass to the gate promptly because they do some more security checking there and boarding is happening like, ten minutes ago.

We find our seats. Wisely, DI invested in a bit of an upgrade and so now we are just the two of us at the very back of the plane, with a little extra room, which is really handy when you’re stuck in the Scavenger’s Daughter for ten hours.

But make that thirteen hours, because we will sit on the tarmac for three of those hour thingies as they make some last-minute repairs to the landing gear. The pilot and flight attendants update us regularly, and while DI is a little bugged at the constant apologizing, I could listen to those Scottish accents all day.

Once aloft, the flight crew is wonderful. They suggest wine at every turn, probably to make sure we are not overly piqued at the delayed flight. We permit ourselves to be bribed.

This picture captures it all: that weird, twilighty feeling you get when you doze on a plane for most of the day, and stumble off into the Phoenix night and find your way home.

The amazing thing about this trip is that we enjoyed every single minute (with the some notable exceptions, but they were rare and brief). At no point did we start thinking, “Man, I gotta get home.” Until we woke up Sunday morning and said, “Hey! It’s time to go home!” and cheerfully packed and were so happy to go there.

Fabulous time. Fabulous travel companion. Fabulous country.

Thanks for reading!

© E. Stocking Evans 2018