Day 12 - Home

I gave my plan for getting home on the last entry but now that I am home I thought I would update what really happened.
I rose at 4.00 am Friday morning to make sure I had time to get ready, have a morning drink, check the room to make sure I had packed everything before heading out to the airport.  Obviously at that time of the morning it was a quick ten minutes to the car parking which for such a small airport is just outside of the very small terminal building.
I checked in and to give you a clue as to how this airport works, the check in area is about ten foot by ten foot, when you check your bag in, it doesn't disappear down a chute it is lifted to the back of the counter and awaits someone to carry it to the trolley which will be pushed to the side of the plane.  Once through check in there is a small corridor that leads to two doors which are the toilets and the car hire desk is at the side of the two toilet doors.  I handed my car keys back and then a lady who worked there offered me a coffee which is basically a coffee pot that had been filled and is left for people to help themselves.  There is no charge for the coffee.  There are no vending machines or shops but is probably the best airport I have ever used.  It has the kindest friendliest people ever.  Everyone is so pleasant and talks to you like they have known you forever.  So Lea County Airport Hobbs, gets my vote for best airport ever.
I got my plane and got to Houston some hour and a half later and my plane to London was five hours later but at least on time.  So the wait began.  As you can imagine it involved getting coffee, looking in every shop that is in the terminal and trying to avoid every food outlet as I knew I would be having two meals on the plane so no point in buying anything.
Finally the wait was over and I boarded the plane, as the TV screen is always on I decided to start watching a film straight away as my plan was to try and sleep after the meal.  I choose to watch Gravity as I had not seen that.  Time passed and I realised that we were still on the ground and not moving.  Eventually we were told the plane had a problem and that it was being fixed.  The Gravity film was just finishing as we moved away from the terminal building and to the runway so basically an hour and forty five minutes later.
Sleeping was impossible on the plane for me and I sat awake most of the time for sleep to come but it didnt and eventually I watched  the film Big with Tom Hanks, again not seen it before.  Followed by some episodes of The Big Bang Theory which finally got me to the point where we were circling London and I watched the flight map until an hour later we got to the ground.
To try and keep this story a lot shorter than it could be I rolled into the house at 1.00 p.m. Saturday lunch time feeling totally exhausted but not wanting to sleep as I wanted to get back to UK time as quickly as possible.  I was just out of it all day though, with me nodding off about every ten minutes and then suddenly waking up and moving to try and keep myself awake.  Still I slept very well Saturday night.
Overall my trip has been very pleasant.  I like the locals in New Mexico, very friendly.  My work colleagues are really great guys and I am looking forward to seeing them again.  I have seen a fair bit of the local area but have plans already for my next trip which I will not share until I actually do them.
The trip is a bit of a killer with it taking about 21 hours not including waiting around in airports and of course the time difference does through me out of kilta.  But as I love doing new things this has been a good trip for that.
But for now I am working from home for a week before heading back to Hobbs just after the bank holiday which should be my first bank holiday this year I have not had to work (except New Years Day), I have been told the weather will be warming up when I get back as it is full summer then so I am to expect it being over 100 degrees f most days.  But we shall see.

So for now it is time to sign off the blog for a week and I will continue to update it when I set off on my travels again next week.

Night All