SATURDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2023

(Atlanta, GA – Home, UK)

The incoming flight was delayed getting in to the stand, with a corresponding delay in it being cleaned and prepared for departure. Despite this, we were all on board and the plane pushed back shortly before 8pm, just 23 minutes late, and the flight took off at 8.14pm. The captain announced that the flight time would be only 7 hours due to the strong winds, less if he could do better, so he do hoped that we would land on time. We left Atlanta and had brief sight of the lights before before climbing into the clouds.

With that responsibility firmly lying in his hands rather than ours, we settled back to relax and enjoy the dinner service. Andrew had lobster for the first time, while I had more customary veggie options (pasta) followed by chocolate mousse. We saw lights along the US shoreline, somewhere just north of New York while we were eating.

Then it was time for bed. I hoped to get some sleep, so settled down quickly, but although I was comfortable, and able to relax, I didn’t really sleep. Andrew did get some sleep, however, despite having started watching a movie. With a seven hour flight time, it wasn’t that long before it was time to wake up/come round, think about breakfast (yogurt and a cup of tea was enough for me), and look at the world as it started to get light. The jet stream is a long way south, and I think it was the most southerly crossing of the Atlantic we’ve had. Our ground speed peaked at 725mph, which is 0.95 Mach…if you ignore that it’s ground speed not air speed!

As we came north over the Irish Sea we could see wind farms below, before we turned east and followed the Dee Estuary in towards Manchester. The views of the ground indicated that it had been raining a lot at home lately…

The plane turned over the hills of the Peak District to commence its final approach for runway 27R. It looked like a beautiful morning with a stunning temperature inversion, the tops of the hills rising above the clouds. Gorgeous to look at from the air, but I suspected that our house was down there in the mist.

The flight landed at 0806, ahead of schedule and less than the predicted 7 hours, so the pilot did indeed more than make up the time. We were soon off the plane, straight through immigration with no queue, and just had a short wait for the bags which all arrived ok (one got a damaged wheel off the outbound flight and has had to be dragged around since – it will now be retired from service). Once we find the taxi booth (not where they said it was, as I think they’ve been refurbishing terminal 2), we were allocated a taxi, which arrived immediately, and we were home by 0930. I was right about the ground fog though, the most was still burning off at home. I was in bed just over 22 hours after getting up.

Having had a few hours sleep, it’s now time to get on to the right time zone. Andrew has been food shopping, and I’m thinking about cooking…

The overall travel stats for the trip are:

4 flights: 10,592 miles

2 trains: 23 miles

4 shuttle trains: 2 miles

5 shuttle buses: 16 miles

2 taxis: 23 miles

1 rental car: 1,191 miles

14 hikes: 29.2 miles (more on Andrew’s gps!)

1 bike ride: 20.1 miles

Total distance: 11,896 miles.

Step count 199,523 steps in total.

Time to stay still and rest now, maybe…just for a while?