London to Charlotte

For the last time on this trip, we set the alarm and prepared for another early day of travel, but this time back home to the familiar.  We have become very efficient at this!  I look around the room and ask, as Steve often did on the coach, "Now have a little think:  phones? chargers? passports?"  Bags were rolled down to the concierge desk at 8:15.  And then we sat around in the lobby of the Hard Rock Hotel, quiet 60s-era rock music continually playing in the background, visiting with a handful of our traveling companions, some of whom were returning as we were, others going on to further adventures; Vernon and Ruth and Mary were on their way to stay in a castle for a week.

Our chauffeured van arrived and in no time we were back at Heathrow, but this time (being seasoned travelers!) it seemed as if we passed through airport security and baggage much more easily.

Our flight was at 12:30 p.m., and we were scheduled to arrive in Charlotte at 4:30 p.m.  We had wisely anticipated the effects of jet lag and planned to stay the night in Charlotte rather than driving home, since 4:30 p.m. Charlotte Time was 9:30 p.m. London Time.  (And, surprisingly, I found that I remained on London Time much longer after returning than I had remained on Charlotte Time in England three weeks ago).

It was bittersweet to climb higher and higher in the sky and watch the City of London, and then the little patchwork-quilt fields and hedgerows and stone fences of the beautiful countryside through which we had traveled the past three weeks - "England's green and pleasant land" - disappear below us, finally vanishing suddenly in clouds.

What a surprise (we should have expected it) to find Charlotte baking in the 90s, the heat and humidity hitting us in the face when we stepped outside.  We were to discover that the East Coast was experiencing unprecedented heat, while snow was coming early to Montana.

After a good night's rest, we left for home, through the hot, sticky humidity of the upstate.  How true it is that travel gives you a different perspective!  I was struck, as if seeing it for the first time, by the roadside trash, the junk cars, the vacant fields in which no livestock grazed, the falling-down buildings of that particularly poverty-stricken stretch of rural roadside between Charlotte and home.  We stopped in the middle of nowhere at a red light, waiting and waiting, and I found myself thinking, "This intersection needs a roundabout!"  Yes, they really do work.

But make no mistake:  despite the lack of orderly fields and hedgerows and the ruins of old towers and cathedrals, our country is a beautiful one, and as we climbed higher and higher on familiar two-lane roads into the mountains of Western North Carolina, we were glad to be back home again.  And our little Town, Highlands, is truly remarkable.  It is wonderful to be able to travel, but this is a good place to live, and we were glad to be returning.

So I sit at my desk, reading the notes on the last page of the little diary I kept, looking at the handful of treasures we brought back home with us:  a sprig of heather from Scotland; a postcard-sized note card from Shakespeare's birthplace reading, "We know what we are, but know not what we may be" (Hamlet); and three small rocks, one from Scotland, one from Ireland, and one from the coast of England. 

But much more than that:  memories that will last a lifetime.