Wednesday 1 May 2019

California Road Trip - Day 1, Departure

Sophie and I were up early this morning as we'd offered to take Mike to work to give Keith a lie-in. It was a gorgeous morning and after we'd dropped him off and bid him a fond farewell, we went down to the gym.

For some time now a man follows Sophie around the gym and never misses an opportunity to be on a treadmill near her. He's in no way a threat to her but we refer to him as "Toeman" as he wears weird water shoes that have toe spaces! She sees him every single morning so I suggested we go down and wait for him to come out so I could see what he looked like!

We sat in the car near the entrance and Sophie wore dark glasses and a baseball cap to look incognito! We waited almost an hour, but of course, he never came out so we gave up! I don't think we would make good detectives!

On the way home we saw a Virgin hot air balloon and it was a really beautiful morning with the sun peering through the misty clouds. Sophie made a veggie sausage sandwich and then we both made the final preparations for our journey to America.

I hoovered the house, did my last minute packing and had a shower. Sophie painted my toenails and at 1.30pm we were able to check in online. As soon as that was done and we'd printed our boarding passes, we left to go down to Heathrow.

Before we'd even got a couple of miles, we came upon a broken down horsebox on the A43 so we had to go through Overstone. On the M1 we came to a complete halt between junctions 14 and 13 due to a series of accidents further down the motorway. What a pain!

We crawled along but once on the M25 the traffic was better. Following our SatNav's instructions we turned off the M4 at junction 4 but I went the wrong way so it took us another twenty minutes to get to our Premier Inn on Bath Road. It was a bit of a tortuous journey!

Mike had also called to say that he wasn't able to go to Jessie's house in Abington as planned so that sent us into a bit of a spin. Sophie told him to get a taxi home, but when we called him from the hotel he had managed to contact her and all was well, thank goodness!

I was dying for a cup of tea so we treated ourselves to one in the room, and ate some biscuits I'd brought with me. We then unpacked our clothes for the evening and relaxed for a while. It had been a  busy day so far! Keith phoned to say he'd picked up Mike and they were heading home, so that was a relief.

At 6.30pm we went down to the bar and enjoyed a glass of wine. The hotel was bustling and busy and we sat at a table alongside the main thoroughfare and watched people arriving. There was a lovely, very comfortable seating area with a 24 hour Costa and a Thyme restaurant. We'd booked a table for 7.30pm and had already had a good look at the menu. We'd decided to go for the meal deal and have breakfast in the morning before we left for the airport.

Our meal was delicious and we started with cheesy garlic flatbread (Sophie) and a Prawn Cocktail for me. Sophie went veggie for her main course with a feta, spinach and sweet potato lasagne while I went Greek with a meaty skewer selection which consisted of lamb koftas, chicken and chorizo served with rice and Mediterranean vegetables.

After the meal we were stuffed so we skipped dessert, had another glass of wine and headed for bed. We were both very tired!

No comments: