Wednesday 27 / Thursday 28 October

Shopping and Getting back to the UK

After sorting out all my stuff at the motel I went and did a last little bit of shopping before heading off to the airport. The trip back went OK although not without incident. To start with just as we reached the runway the pilot told us we were heading back to the terminal as the baggage handlers feared they'd put some bags in the wrong place (they had) which delayed us by about an hour. The pilot said that due to the winds and taking on extra fuel so they could go faster that they shoudl be able to make the time up, which they duely did. Only for us all to sit on the ground at Heathrow for about an hour as the original steps for the plane broke and it took them that long to get a replacement set. Thankfully I, just, still made my flight up to Manchester.

Summary

Again, I though I'd write a quick summary of what I did. I'll start with some stats:

I drove 2354 miles for an average of 168 miles per day.

I took 537 photos for an average of 38 photos per day.

I stayed in four different motels (three Motel 6's and one Econo Lodge) each for a single night and 8 different campsites (9 nights) and wild camped for a single night.

I spent lots of money. Don't have an exact figure but it was, again, too much - but no where near as bad as last year.

On the whole I really enjoyed the whole holiday apart from the single day which went a bit wrong. It was really enjoyable visiting a bit of America quite different from other places I had visited. I think my favourite bit was the campsite on the little pensiula and the scenary in that area with the Lakes. The bit I'm proudest off is definitely finishing the 27 mile hike in two days which is memorable for quite different reasons. As long as I can find myself a job after my PhD it looks like I'll be back in America next year, although this time on a climbing trip.