Finishing the story

And so the longest day of the holiday was here. Today we would begin the long journey back home. We had mixed emotions. Ones of sadness because the day had finally come to return home, but ones of happiness as we have had such an amazing couple of weeks.

As we did have a long day ahead of us we decided to have a longer lie in and check out a bit later.

I still got up at 9:30 and tidied a few things up round the suite.I also finished repacking my cases which had become over cluttered. Definitely not anything to do with the amount of things I was bringing back.

Once we were all ready we made several trips to the car to pack all the cases and bags in before saying goodbye to our final accomodation. 

I drove Sam round to the front as Jill checked out.

We then headed to an IHOP about 15 minutes down the road for a final American breakfast. I had a breakfast biscuit with bacon,egg and hash browns.

Once we were all set we headed off to the Air and space museum near Dulles Airport. We had planned to visit the one in the centre of Washington but found out you had to pre-book a time slot, of which there were none available for the day, so we opted for the sister museum near to us.

We were not to be disappointed however as this was magnificent. It was split into sections, war planes, commercial aircraft and space.

We got tickets for a cinema showing of 'A journey into space' which was a short 25 minute film about the history of space travel and plans for the future. Very interesting.

Before that however we went up to the viewing platform at the top of the museum which gave us great views over Washington Dulles airport. I was using the flight radar app on my phone to track the aircraft that were taking off and landing. It was fascinating, there was a tour guide up there who knew everything about the aircraft and patterns flying into the airport.

The rest of the museum was amazing and very easy to get around. The space section held the space shuttle 'Discovery'. Yes the real one! It was so interesting to walk around. There was also an air France Concorde and the red bull space jump capsule that Felix Baumgartner used when he broke the record for the highest freefall.

We spent ages marvelling at all the weird and wonderful aircraft and could have stayed longer but at 5:30 the doors were closing.

We headed back to the car and headed out to get some fuel so we could return the car with a full tank. We queued up at a Costco, the queue was massive because it was Friday evening and everyone was filling up for the weekend. After a while it was our turn, but we soon realized we needed a Costco card to be able to fill up at the station, how stupid.

So our we went again and luckily just a few more miles up the road we found another place, with no queue.

Once we filled up we headed to Dulles airport and dropped off the hire car. I have nothing but praise for this car. It drove well, it was perfect for getting Sam in and out, and great for storing all our bags and cases.

Jill and I struggled across the road with our cases and soon after we checked in at the BA desk. We were well ahead of time however as it was only 7pm and our flight didnt go until 10:45

This was all pretty straightforward. Jill and I sailed through security no problem but Sam's chair set off a bomb alert! This means he and his chair had to be thoroughly searched. After a few nervous minutes we were clear through.

Once at gate B42 we were all hungry and thirsty again so got a cheeky Wendy's before doing a bit of last minute snack buying in the shops!

Once again when the plane boarded we were the first on. How ironic that waiting at the gate to help Sam on the plane was the same guy we were chatting to about Wrestlemania when we arrived over 2 weeks ago. He remembered us and we had a good chat with him about it, he was amazed at everything we had done on our trip.We had covered nearly 2000miles in total.

The flight took off pretty much on time, it would only be 6 hrs 25min flight time due to strong tail wings pushing the 777 across the Atlantic.

This flew by pretty quick as we got stuck into a couple of films. I didn't sleep at all as I never really felt tired.

We landed at about 11:00am. The staff were so nice whilst we got Sam off the plane. We were chatting to the cabin crew about our trip.The cleaners were waiting to get in as they had 1 hr to clean the plane before it was heading off to Riyadh.

We got through passport control fairly quickly and then baggage claim. Once we had loaded everything into the car Jill had to get used to driving on the left side of the road again. We had a slow drive home due to hold ups on the M25 and more hold ups the rest of the way, ironic after we experience no traffic jams in the whole 2 weeks we were away, well not to that extent anyway.

Got home at 2.45pm to be greeted by mum and dad who had a chat with Jill and Sam about what an amazing holiday it had been.

What an amazing time it has been, it felt like we were out there for ages because we packed so much in, now it will take a few days to settle back into the routine of normal life again, but the memories will last a lifetime!