From the UK to the USA

London - Houston


After a reasonable nights sleep, we got up shortly after 7 and headed for breakfast at the Travelodge.  We had prepaid for breakfast as we had plenty of time and it was cheaper than buying it the airport!  Although it wasn't fantastic, for the price (£6.25) it was not bad, especially as it was buffet and you could eat and drink as much as you wanted.

We then reloaded the car and drove to Terminal 4, where we discovered that the instructions for dropping off the car were confusing, to say the least!  Eventually, we worked out where we needed to park and after a short delay, the company arrived to collect the car.  That done, it was into the terminal to drop off our bags.

Security was pretty quiet and we fairly whizzed through and had about 90 minutes to wait for our flight.  We were quite surprised by how quiet it was at the boarding gate and even more surprised when we got on board the aircraft that business and premium economy class were quite full but economy class was largely empty.  We had no-one in the row of seats in front of or behind us.

The flight, United Airlines, left the gate early, but got in the usual traffic-jam waiting to take off, so we left not long after midday.  The flight over UK, up to Scotland and out over N.Irelend was mainly overcast and we could see nothing.  Later, as we were passing southern Greenland, the skies cleared and we had a great view of the coast and mountains.  There was lots of pack ice and icebergs.  The cloud returned again until we crossed the coast of Canada on the north coast of the island of Labrador when the skied cleared again.  From here, all the way down to the Tennessee/Arkansas state line, it was nothing but snow on the ground.  From Arkansas down through Louisiana, it must have got a lot warmer as by the time we landed in Houston after a flight of 10 hours and 15 minutes, it was 26C or 79F.

Once off the plane it was the usual trek through immigration and customs and then quite a wait for the shuttle bus to our hotel.  We had a high-speed turn round here as we were meeting friends for dinner.  Randy and Barb drove us through Houston traffic, and it was very jammed, to a restaurant called Plonks.  This turned out to be a wine and beer diner, with a huge wine and beer selection and excellent food.

After an excellent diner with good food, drink and conversation, we returned to the hotel, fairly exhausted and looking forward to a good nights sleep.