Day 17 - Saturday 26th September 2015
Written by Kev
The dreaded
travelling home day.
We are awake at 8.00am and Tam goes off to do on-line check in
and get pastries for breakfast.
Packing goes relatively smoothly and everything fits into the
suitcases remarkably easily. The only bad thing is that Tam’s
brand new suitcase has a broken handle. I did tell her not to buy
it from Shoddysuitcases.com.
We meet up with Deb and Matt and The Beast is loaded up. We drive an hour or so and meet up with Sharon and Keith. They are in the process of building a new house. Keith runs a house rental and maintenance company, but also renovates and builds houses. The structure of the house is pretty much complete and I can’t believe it when Keith tells me they only started the project a few weeks before. I guess it helps that the walls aren’t made of bricks like most homes in the UK, but it’s still very impressive.
This will be the view from the balcony when it's finished.
It’s soon time for us to leave for the airport and we say our farewells to Sharon and Keith, who have been wonderful hosts for our few days in Texas.
We drive to Austin airport and we say goodbye to The Beast. As I walk away, I look back and I’m sure I see moisture in his headlights. It turns out that The Beast is just a big pussycat after all.
We grab some
lunch, although this isn’t quite the relaxing experience we
were hoping for. There are not many food places and no really
nice restaurants, so we end up eating in a type of food court.
Still, we find the wine bar and sit there for a while with a
couple of glasses of wine.
Our flight is on the new BA service to Heathrow aboard a
Dreamliner. I had read that the air recirculating system on the
Dreamliner is supposed to be much better and perhaps there is
something to it as I sleep for 4 or 5 hours. The most impressive
thing about the plane is the window blinds. You press a button to
lighten or darken the window, keeps me amused for ages. I’m
not sure I would pay more money to fly on the Dreamliner, but I
would certainly not be unhappy if we were on one in the future.
So, that’s the end of another holiday.
There were so many lovely, fun people we met – the ladies in Oklahoma we ate with at Jincy’s and Wilbert and Charlotte (Sharon’s parents) being among them. Everyone was so welcoming and hospitable.
Of course, we owe a great debt to Susan, who showed us so much in Oklahoma and introduced us to Sally, Shelly and Gabi.
In Texas it was Sharon, Keith and Evan who ensured we were never short of something to do and provided great company for the length of our stay.
Finally, Deb and Matt. As ever, we had some laughs, we ate some food, and we drank some drink. ‘Some’ could be changed to ‘enormous quantities’ to be more accurate. Thanks to them for their company and their continued friendship.