Fri 10th June
After lots of waiting pre-travel day was finally here!
As I am a crazy person I had signed up to do a challenge for Cancer Research riding 300 miles during June. As we were away for 2 weeks I needed to complete my miles in 15 days (for those of you who are good at maths that’s an average of 20 miles per day).
So first task of the day was to do my cycling…..I started at about 0615 and completed 25.11 miles in 1 hour 35 minutes, meaning I had completed 230.15 miles in my first 10 days.
Next up after showers was our Covid tests at 0930 with Qured (we were I think the last day that this was needed as the rules changed just after); the lady did us both at the same time as they were having issues.
Thankfully we were negative so we uploaded our results and headed to town to collect some dry cleaning and pick up a Father’s Day card.
Rob also got a quick haircut at the barber’s as his appointment had been cancelled due to staff illness.
Back home to do fly ready and online check in which all went smoothly and we soon had our documents printed so next up was ironing and finally packing.
We were about ready to leave at 1500 and squeezed our 3 cases (plus hand luggage) into our Skoda Citigo EV and headed off, dropping off the Father’s Day card on our way.
Unfortunately, there was an accident on the A303 just where we would join, we hit a short queue and then took a small detour before joining further along. It appeared to be a bad accident as the road was closed to oncoming traffic.
The rest of our journey was super smooth, we stopped at our regular Starbucks near Fleet for about 30 mins to top up our charge on our car and got a little snack as we realised that we hadn’t had any lunch!
We travelled the remaining 20 miles or so to Heathrow long stay where amazingly we got to park in Zone A which never happens! We got a nice space right by a bus stop!
It was warm and sunny waiting for our bus, which was good preparation for Florida.
Quick bus ride to T2 and we walked across to the Hilton Garden Inn. We popped our bags in our room and then went to M&S to get more food.
We had a little room picnic and then watched TV before bed!
Mon 21st into Tues 22nd
Today was the end of our short trip – we were flying later in the evening so were making the most of our time.
For breakfast we had some more of the muffins and Jen tried the same one that I had eaten yesterday. She agreed with me that it was in fact not chocolate but agreed that it had fruit and nut included.
We decided we had to solve this puzzle and so consulted the sprouts website. Through a process of elimination, we were able to determine that it was in fact vegan super fruit! Possibly the furthest option from chocolate that it could have been!
A final day wouldn’t be complete without some shopping and Rob wanted to buy a new notebook – a Rocketbook which you can erase and reuse. We hadn’t found them in Best Buy so we thought we would try Staples. We found what he was looking for and got a mini version so that we can use it for our shopping list each week.
We also visited Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma and another new supermarket called The Fresh Market.
We bought a chicken and sides deal for lunch – I think it was $18 for the chicken plus 2 sides which was amazing value. We really enjoyed this and I think we finished off the remaining cake before we left.
At some point Rob and I did our packing (I think we did most of it in the morning and then finished it off when we got back from the shops). We spent the rest of our afternoon playing on the Switch and watching HGTV.
Sadly, the time arrived for us to leave, we had a short drive back to the airport where we dropped off the car and caught the bus to the terminal.
Check in was quite quick but we had a long wait for security which was a shame. I had hoped to find the Earl of Sandwich located at the airport but it closed at 7pm and by the time we had checked in it was too late 🙁
Once we were finally through security we decided on pizza (I forgot the photo), we accidentally ordered a pizza with white sauce but it was actually quite tasty.
We bought a Philadelphia magnet (and when we got home realised we already had one!) to add to the one we had got at Purebread earlier in our trip.
We had a short flight home due to a strong tail wind, our flight time was under 6 hours. Neither of us had any of the food options as we wanted to sleep so I’m afraid we can’t compare premium economy food to economy.
We arrived back at heathrow at around 9am I think and in exciting news I got through the e passport gate with ease (normally taking my glasses off causes an issue and I had the mask to deal with too this time).
We got a bus to the long stay car park where we successfully retrieved the car. We drove to our Starbucks just off the M3 to add some charge (and take a short nap). I got us muffins and I picked up a coffee (I think a mocha).
Once we had added enough charge we headed home where we continued our napping for a short while longer before we made ourselves get up and have dinner so that we could try and get back onto UK time.
Sun 20th Feb
We had a similar pattern today breakfast at home followed by exercise relatively early while it was warm(er) and sunny.
We had picked up a variety pack of muffins (well actually we got 2 packs) yesterday at Sprouts and the boys (Rob and Tom) gave me what they had decided was a chocolate muffin. I started eating it and was pretty confident that it wasn’t…I concluded it had fruit and nuts but couldn’t work it out…..
Today Jen and Tom took us to walk around Alapocas State Park, we did a slightly shorter walk today as it felt a bit colder even though it was much brighter.
We had lunch at Jen and Tom’s – Tom made us yummy grilled cheese sandwiches and I am sure we had some more cake 
Our project for today was to help Jen build some of her Lego, she selected the Saturn 5 rocket and it actually took less time than I had expected!
We decided on Famous Dave’s (we call it Fat Dave’s because the portions are so big) for dinner – there used to be one much closer but that has closed so we took a short drive to Newark. We had a selection of meat’s and it was just as good as we remembered!
I believe we watched the end of a TV show tonight about the worst houses in the USA……not entirely sure they actually picked the worst one but it was entertaining!
Sat 19th Feb
Today we decided to get in some exercise before the anticipated much colder temps were due to arrive in the afternoon.
Jen and Tom took us to Winterthur
Winterthur is 1,000 acres of protected meadows, woodlands, ponds, and waterways. The 60-acre garden, designed by du Pont, is among America’s best, with magnificent plantings and massive displays of color throughout the year. (I might have stolen this from their website)
We managed about 9000 steps (according to my fitbit) in just under 1hr30 and then decided it was time for lunch. Today’s choice was Purebred – which is essentially a similar idea to Panera but a local company.
I had another tomato soup and the remainder of my sandwich from dinner the previous night.
We spent some of the afternoon playing various games at the house on the Switch which continued to demonstrate how rubbish Rob and I are at the games!
Later we headed to a nearby mall to stock up on a few things from Bath and Body Works including these amazing hand sanitiser holders!
Next up Best Buy, where I got an Apple Watch and Rob got some new AirPods, taking advantage of the lower price and no sales tax!
Next to Best Buy was a supermarket called Sprouts which we felt was similar to Wholefoods, we didn’t buy very much here from memory but enjoyed seeing the different options.
Dinner tonight was from the imaginatively titled Hong Kong Chinese, we were excited to get some items in proper ‘American style’ Chinese packaging like you see on TV!
We spent the rest of the evening playing Switch and watching some more of our favourites on HGTV.
Fri 18th Feb
Today was my birthday and Jen had very kindly made me a birthday cake!
We had breakfast at home and then at our request went to Target to do some shopping! We stocked up on all our favourites – theatre boxes for our cinema room and loads of other candy!
I also took this photo:
Does anyone know if PG Tips is really England's No1 Tea?
We spent something like $135 mostly on sweets – the cashier seemed amused and the man behind us in the queue was definitely judging us!
Jen and Tom then indulged us with a trip to Lowe’s where we had a look at all the amazing DIY stuff. We also bought some carpenters pencils because they came with a sharpener which we hadn’t seen before!
Final thing on my birthday wishlist was Panera bread for lunch where we got a variety of treats. I had a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup which was soooo good. We of course had cake for dessert
We spent the afternoon at the house, we were introduced to some games on the Nintendo Switch which Rob and I were pretty awful at but we had fun anyway!
We decided on a mix of sandwiches and burgers for dinner from a local restaurant which I think was Kid Shelleens. We had a colder walk tonight and we were glad we had brought our hats and scarfs with us! I forgot to take a photo though 
Wed 16th Feb
Today we were preparing for our first trip to the USA in almost 2 years, we flew back from our last trip on 28th Feb 2020!
First step was our lateral flow tests, we had booked the supervised option with QURED (cost was £25 per person when we booked). Rob had his appointment at 9 and mine was 10 mins later. Rob’s appointment started a few mins late so we overlapped which was a bit awkward but otherwise the process was simple. We both had to show the tests to the camera while being observed doing the swabs etc. Then after 15 mins we had to upload a photo and about 20 mins later we had our certificates.
Next step was to upload all of our documents to the Verifly app. I think the order was attestation, vaccine proof and then negative test certificates. We had to wait for a test certificates to be checked but we had our green ticks by lunchtime so we were all ready for online check in
We finished work at about 4 (we are currently working from home) so we finished packing (we had started the day before) and then loaded up the car. We had to drop off a birthday card on the way and were finally ‘on the way’ just after 5pm.
We were taking our Skoda Citigo (full electric) so took the journey a little slower than normal to conserve battery. We stopped at Starbucks near Fleet (not the Motorway services) to charge.
We both had cheese toasties and a drink while we topped up the car for the rest of the drive (we were only about 20 miles away from the airport at this stage but wanted to ensure we had enough charge to get back here on the way home).
We arrived at the Hilton Garden Inn at around 8pm and checked in quickly, it was quite windy today (but not as bad as we saw it was over the weekend). We had booked our room using points and so the only charge was for parking overnight which was £12.
Thu 17th Feb
This morning we had breakfast at the hotel (which was free as part of our gold membership) before packing up our things and driving to the long stay car park (only going for 4 nights but we wanted a car park which meant we could keep our keys and this seemed to be one of the only options).
We found a parking space near a light so that we could easily find it on our return and headed to the nearest bus stop. We had a short wait which was good as it was quite chilly.
We arrived at the terminal and headed for the AA desks (we had booked via BA but selected an AA flight for the better times and also free seat selection on booking) where we showed our Verifly app and got shown to a very short queue. There was a much longer queue for people who hadn’t used the app – which given it is free seemed very odd, but maybe there are some people that can’t use it for some reason?
After our bags had been taken and we had been checked in we headed straight to security as we weren’t sure how busy it would be. It didn’t take us very long and we were soon through to the departure lounge. We popped into boots to pick up a few items and then settled down to wait for our gate. We did notice that lots of people weren’t wearing masks despite them being ‘required’ at this stage at Heathrow.
Soon enough our gate was announced so we started the walk to get there, we also picked up a couple of snacks on the way to the gate
AA boarded in groups, we were in economy so the last group but the flight appeared quiet and so we were on very quickly.
We were moved to different seats when we boarded – they were giving each party 3 or 4 seats between them and were keeping the back rows free – I assume for the crew to rest in later on the flight.
The flight attendants were very tight on mask compliance, frequently reminding people to wear their masks correctly.
This was the day before one of the big storms so the Captain told us he was expecting a slightly bumpy ride. We had the seatbelt sign slightly extended after takeoff and our meal service was also slightly later.
We had a choice of chicken or pasta and also received pretzels and drink at the same time.
Later there was ice cream and a little while later a choice of crisps or chocolate. I am sure there were a couple of offers of soft drinks too.
Finally, we had folded pizza for a snack before landing which was actually pretty good.
Immigration was relatively quick, they are still using the machines at Philadelphia. We got a cross (we assume because we said we had food); the officer asked lots of questions which was unusual and even wanted to see our return ticket (luckily our app was sufficient).
Once through immigration our luggage was just arriving so a definite improvement over our normal trips to Orlando. We then took the bus to the car rental place - this was slow, there were 3 staff and one was tied up the whole time with an awkward customer. Once we got to our agent we were sorted quickly and off on our short trip to Wilmington.
We hit a little bit of traffic on I95 but nothing awful and we found ourselves arriving at Jen and Tom’s. We got settled and decided on pizza for dinner, it was quite warm so we decided to walk to collect it – we thought the exercise would help wake us up.
Back at the house we had our food and spent some time catching up. I think we watched some HGTV in an attempt to stay awake – which I think we managed past 9pm which was a good effort!
