England epilog

We returned to Newcastle Sunday night and spent Monday packing and repacking to get the maximum weight in all the suitcases. Had a taxi pick us up at 5:30am to go to the airport (that would be 11:30pm Monday night CDT).  Our flight to Dublin was pretty uneventful other than having to stand in a cold, blowing rain to board the plane.

Rainy start

Last view of English countryside

Clouds most of the way

Finally a view of the Irish Sea

Busy shipping lane

Irish coast

Dublin

We had a two hour layover in Dublin and it was a good thing, it took almost that long to get through US Customs.  Our flight to Chicago was delayed about 30 minutes because about half the passengers  were stuck in customs. We were seated in the middle row so I did not get a window seat.  I could not hear the movies they were showing using the earbuds so I amused myself by playing computer games, Soduku, and watching the flight info.  At one point we were at 37,000 ft, flying almost 600 MPH, the outside temp was -67 deg F, and we had a 70 MPH tail wind that helped us get to Chicago on schedule.  No problems in Ohare other than finding which terminal our next flight was in and going through security again.

Landing in Nashville

 When we landed in Nashville we were told that a thunderstorm had knocked out most of the power in the terminal and all the gates were not working so we had to sit on the runway almost an hour waiting to deplane.  Thankfully, a skycap saw us struggling with the 4 large suitcases and 4 carry-ons (we brought back some of Megan's stuff) and helped us to the bus, I tipped him well. Our travails were not over when we got to the car though, many of the traffic lights in town were out so it took us another 30 minutes to get to the freeway.  We finally arrived home about 8:30pm, 21 hours after we started that morning.
It was a great trip but airport security has really taken the fun out of flying, wish there was a bridge so I could take my RV next time.