Our journey over to USA went pretty well really, but it's always tricky when you have to go through Heathrow if you have to change terminals - as we did, from 5 to 3. We got off the Aberdeen plane and walked for maybe 10 minutes to get to the departure point for the transit buses that take you to T3, but there was a seething mass of people waiting there when we arrived, We had to wait for 5 or 6 busloads before we managed to get on one - and then it's about a 15 minute ride, so that's an hour gone already since we got off the plane in T5.
Stress levels were rising - particularly when we saw the lines at T3 security. Another half hour passed. The moral is simple - never arrange a tight connection at Heathrow unless you're arriving at and departing from the same terminal.
There was a bit of a delay in the plane departing as well - technical problem with one of the door's automatic locking systems apparently, but, apart from that, the flight went well. It was our first return to cattle class for many years and I have to say it wasn't too unpleasant at all. The service was very good - lots of regular food and drinks supplied, although it's all very cramped for eating and drinking as we had booked seats at the front of the cabin next to the emergency doors - it meant nobody was sitting beside us and we had tons of legroom, but the pop-up tray table is tiny.
We smoothed our way through US Immigration at Denver and it didn't take too long for our bags to arrive and then we jumped on our (free) hotel shuttle and very soon we had checked in to the Residence Inn - in a lovely big suite. There was a full service Marriott across the road so we popped over there for a couple of local beers and shared a cheese and meat platter. By now, it was nearing 10 pm local time but our body clocks were at 5 am the following morning so it was time for some shut-eye.
We could have flown directly to Medford from Denver but it would have meant a fairly early start in the morning so we had elected instead to take our time and leave at lunchtime, going via Seattle, but it meant we arrived in Oregon in the early evening and Lucy was there waiting to take us to Grants Pass - and she'd managed a full day's work and hadn't had to take any time off to pick up her old folks.
Lucy and Scott were working on Friday of course, so Jo and I decided we needed to stretch our legs a bit. We took the Jeep and headed up to the familiar territory of the Cathedral Hills trail system and chose a couple of trails that would give us, roughly, a 5 mile loop. It's well shaded and it wasn't ridiculously hot so we coped OK - well, I did anyway - but it may have been too soon after the journey for Jo, who said the undulations nearly killed her!
On Saturday, it was Open Day at Solero Winery, a lovely little place in the Applegate Valley that we had visited last year - Scott and Lucy were now Wine Club members there. Early afternoon wine drinking in the sun seems lovely at the time, but it has a hugely soporific effect later on - particularly as Scott took us to a new brewpub afterwards - via a coffee and cake stop at Pennington Farms. We managed some takeaway pizza in the evening but were happy to tumble in to bed fairly early on.
On Sunday morning, I felt sufficiently revived to venture out on a short bike ride around the town - nothing substantial and certainly no hills - it had been a while since I'd been in the saddle, so I took it very easy. Braeden was staying at a friend's house, but Cade had two of his buddies at home with him and they wanted to go boating/surfing on the lake so Scott, being the only duly licensed adult available, took them to Galesville reservoir, whilst Lucy, Jo and I drove over to Medford to do the Costco weekly food shop - plus a visit to Barnes & Noble's excellent book store.
One of the upshots of our trip is that the Lesinas now have a brand new, super-duper BBQ/grille - or they will have when Scott has finished assembling it. The old one had served them well, but it's now time to move on. Food quality reports will follow over the next few weeks.
Now you may be wondering why all this narrative and no photos? Well, most of them have already appeared on Facebook, but I've kept a couple back for this blog. I have two new pairs of swim shorts - Lucy bought me one with a definite Hawaii'an theme in mind, in view of our trip there in a few weeks' time:
To continue with my modelling of the Stewart range of swimshorts, here's what Jo bought me in M & S before we left:
The last photo was taken on my cycle ride this morning (Sunday). Every year, Grants Pass erects in the downtown area several bears, each with a different theme - here's one of them:
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| (New top also supplied by Lucy) |
That's all for now folks.
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