Monday 21st July
So, the alarm goes off at 8am and suddenly you wake up and realise, the day has come to return home.
It seems like we have been out here for years because I have seen so much in my time out here, but at the same time it also feels like the time has flown by.
I have been soaked in Orlando, Sunburnt in Dallas, swelteringly hot in Vegas to freezing cold in San Francisco.
I have met some really friendly people along the way and had some fascinating conversations, also encountered my fair share of scammers and loonies but survived relatively unscathed, which is more than i can say for my poor shower in LA when it was faced with me.
Saw a NASCAR event at Daytona, a Queen gig in Dallas, the bright lights of the Las Vegas strip, the glitz and glamour and sandy beaches of Los Angeles....and managed to escape Alcatraz on my visit to San Francisco.
For our final morning we decided a good breakfast was in order as we had no idea where our next decent meal would be coming from.
So less than 12 hours after our last visit we were back down to good old Lori's Diner for one final time. We had to queue to get in...not quite as long as the queue for Alcatraz, we were only waiting for 5 minutes but it proves the diners' popularity! It was a good breakfast...2 pancakes, sausages,bacon, 2 eggs, hash browns!!!
After this we had a few hours to kill before the shuttle bus was due to pick us up so we headed (or waddled) down to fisherman's wharf one final time to get a final view of the bay and breathe some sea air. My feet were really hurting today due to the amount of walking we had done over the course of the last 2 1/2 weeks. My blisters were very painful, but more so today than any other day of the trip so it was a little extra effort for me.
Jacob had a bit more souvenir shopping to do so i decided to head to pier 39 and rest my feet for a while, admire the view and soak up the atmosphere one last time.
I was approached by some Japanese tourists whilst sitting there who came up to me with their iPad and said "toooh daaaaaahhhk" handed it to me, i said "do you want me to take your photo", which is what you would normally want if you handed your tablet to someone on pier 39 with Alcatraz Island as your backdrop. "noh, noh.....is toooo daaaahk" she said.
I then realised what she was talking about, her screen brightness was too dark. I thought, ah this shouldnt be too tricky....well....first problem, the screen was indeed so dark i could hardly see the display....but secondly....all the writing was in Chinese! After trying my best for them i handed it back and appologised....beaten by technology!
Then came the dreaded walk back up to Sutter street where out hotel was located. It took 1 hr and we were concious of the time because we were being picked up at 2pm. The walk was agonising for me with my feet and i had to take it really easy. It seemed like it took days to get back to the hotel. We had to stop by a Walgreens on the way back to get a strap for my case as it had a small split down one side and knowing how baggage handers can throw them about I needed to secure it properly, had visions of watching my luggage being taken off the aircraft in Heathrow with all my clothes still on the conveyor belt.
I was well and truly knackered by the time we reached the hotel. I had 20 minutes to catch my breath before the shuttle bus turned up. We said goodbye to the hotel staff who had looked after our bags for the morning and headed to San Francisco airport. The trip didn't take as long as we thought and thus got to the airport 4 hrs before flight departure time! Still, better to be early than late.
Got through security despite hardly being able to walk at all by now. I was told by the guard "I will need to sweep your leg, do you need the private room?" I thought....what the hell is he going to do to me! I said "no thanks". It was nothing out of the ordinary for an airport search.
As time went on at the airport gate I just had to sit, normally i would keep active knowing i would be sitting for the next 10 hrs but i really could hardly walk, the pain i was in with my feet. There was hardly anything to look at in the terminal we were in though, about 3 expensive designer shops, a cafe that sold sandwiches at rip off prices and a news stand that had a limited choice of snacks and magazines.
It was at the airport that I began to feel slightly achy and unwell. I thought i would be fine as soon as i boarded the plane, i could relax, rest my feet and all would be fine.
Initially on the plane i felt better, had a great view of San Francisco from the sky when we took off, settled down to watch some of the in-flight entertainment and thought i would be ok. About 2 hrs into the flight however i began to feel achy all over and a massive headache came on. This got worse as the flight wore on, flu like symptoms. Of course there is not much you can do when stuck in a chair at 37000 feet anyway but it was such a huge effort to even raise an arm! Being in the air probably magnified the problem but i dont think i have ever felt that ill before.
I seriously thought that when we landed i would have to get straight to hospital...that's if i made it that far!
I kept watching the clock wind down on the in flight map and it was moving so slowly, I just wanted to get home! I took a couple of paracetamol and managed to drift off to sleep for about 90 minutes and when i woke up i did feel slightly better. I managed breakfast on the plane and drank plenty of fluids as i had been sweating and shivering.
I was glad when we landed back at Heathrow, i was one step closer to home where I could treat my blisters and recover in comfort!
Struggled through passport control and baggage reclaim but was glad to see my parents who i had not seen for 2 1/2 weeks. Mum questioned me as to why i was hobbling, i told her about the blisters and the fact that I nearly died on the flight home. The strange illness was down to dehydration we have concluded, i.e. me not drinking enough water in all the heat and walking about we had been doing.
Traffic was bad on the M25 on the way home (welcome back to England) but the weather was warmer than San Francisco! I kept awake on the way home somehow by telling my parents all about the last few weeks and everything that i had done, seen and heard.
It was weird to be back home, almost seemed like i had never been away, or that i had been in a time lapse. Suddenly the last few weeks seemed a distant hazy memory.
What a great few weeks though, when I look back i realise how much we did cram in, we truly made the most of the time we had and pretty much saw everything we wanted to see in the cities we stayed in....except Orlando, it would have been nice to have seen the conclusion of the Coke Zero 400 but still that was a very minor setback. It was such an adventure to do this trip, to be completely independent in Orlando, having to work out transport, accomodation, daily schedules etc was great fun.
Meeting up with Jacob for Dallas and beyond was a blast. We had so many laughs and made some memories that we will never forget, saw some interesting things along the way...some that we would like to remember, others that we would like to forget but that is all part of the experience!
So that was it....USA 2014......here's hoping i can re-visit the land of the free and the home of the brave again.....soon! Another NASCAR trip maybe? I wouldn't say no!
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