Oct 23 2012 Arriving Home

Oct 23 2012 Arriving Home and Final thoughts

Getting Home

The trip home was long but otherwise uneventful. The flight from Albuquerque was delayed due to issues in Chicago. So late taking off. Then held up over Chicago with the possibility of diversion to alternative airport. Finally landed with much less time to make our connection than we planned. Raced to terminal 5 just in time to board our aer lingus flight for Dublin. Luckily we had checked our bags in at Albuquerque all the way to Dublin. We did add to the pressure by going to Terminal 4 in error for a flight by a different carrier. We have to put it down to tiredness and a good sprinkle of stupidity.

Arrived back in Dublin at 8:20am October 23rd. 2012. It's nice to be home even if the airport is inside a dense fog and the temperature is lower than we have been used to but not as cold as we had expected.

What were the highlights? 

There were so many things that I will always remember about our trip. At least remembering will be easier now that I have a record on this blog. So in no particular order here are some of the highlights.

The People:
The people we met in the US were the greatest surprise we had over the two months. It would be fair to say that we did not meet one person who was unpleasant. We met people from all walks of life and found them to be more than friendly, they were a joy to meet and to chat with. We were given great advise about where to go, what to see, the best routes. No one was in any hurry to get away. They spoke openly of their concerns about the economy, the upcoming presidential campaign, where they stood and what their expectations are post election. I only included a small number of the people we met in this entire blog.

Art:
Everywhere we went went we found people displaying their love for art in just about every way you can imagine. They were so willing to talk about their work or the work of others on display in their galleries. It was inspiring to talk with artists who put everything on the line to follow their passion for creating images. My blog only includes a small fraction of the art and artists we met.

Weather
This trip included the extremes of weather. We did not pack for very cold weather so we had to purchase some additional clothing  for the Rockies and beyond. We had extreme heat in Arizona and freezing temperatures and snow around the Rockies. This added to the overall excitement and sense of adventure. Looking for moose in the snow while keeping an eye our for bears and mountain lions, eek.

Roads, Trucks, Bridges and Tunnels
I just love those massive trucks you see all over the US. They are moving all sorts of products across long distances on Interstates, highways and minor roads. They are always polished to a bright shine. I now wish I had taken more photos of the trucks.

Bridges and Tunnels would also have made a great theme. Alas you just can't cover everything. I got some photos and I will include them at some future date. In the meantime I have many other challenges.

National Park
Most of the roads we drove were inside National Parks. Parks can cover Giant Redwood forests, Mountainous areas, Yellowstone, Teton, Historic sites and even vast deserts.

Shopping Malls
Shopping Malls (or shopping centres ) were just outside most towns and cities. They usually contained the same chain stores. Boring

Food and Drink
We did try to eat the healthy options where ever possible. It was difficult to find restaurants, particularly in the smaller towns, with anything different to the previous town. Portions generally were generous but they wanted to serve fries with everything. The quality of the food was also good and the prices were great. We found some beautiful restaurants along the way but they were usually in the cities.

Family
Well last be never least is family. We managed to include two visits to Albuquerque (Start and End) where we had a great time with Brendan, Julie, Mya and Sean.

We also spent time in our home from home, San Francisco, with Jean and Kris. Always great craic. I think it must be their turn to come over here next?

Freedom
A great surprise was the sense of freedom we experienced. We had a rough route planned but rarely booked hotels ahead of arriving in any location. This allowed us to switch routes at the last minute based on suggestions from locals. I think this worked for us because it was not the high season and we were always able to get accommodation. We did get stung on Labor Day.

I will rewrite this post once I have time to review the overall blog and get some input from Brenda.

Finally, I would like to thanks Bren and Julie for being such good hosts while we were in Albuquerque. Thanks also to Jean and Kris in San Francisco for giving us a great time and the opportunity to go to Cha Cha Cha again.

A special thanks to Brenda, the love of my life, my best friend, travelling companion and co pilot. Thanks for feeding me grapes and oranges while driving, what a life : ) 

OK now bring on Kilimanjaro December 29th. 2012