And on Day 14, We Went Home

No more fish and chips and Cornish pasties and full English breakfasts--somehow we managed to eat McDonald's three meals in a row on the way home.

The McDonald's UK menu is slightly novel, at least...

Anyway, during our trip home most of my brain power was focused not on nutrition, but on this:

Tangent: the Gatwick Airport Facebook page is weirdly really entertaining? They mow the lawns around the runways with sheep!

I have the WORST time with airport security! They always hassle me, it's so ridiculous, but this time I didn't even care if they hassled ME--I just wanted my precious fossils and rocks and bits of sea glass and chunks of chalk to make it safely home with me!

I was a little nervous about this clause, because ALL of my rocks and fossils and chalky bits were exceedingly dirty... as were the clothes I'd been digging them up with:

But nevertheless, I fitted all my rocks and fossils and chalky bits into my carry-on luggage, padded with filthy T-shirts and joggers, and hoped for the best.

And then was immediately stopped by airport security and held for nearly 30 minutes while the Gatwick agent picked up every. Individual. Rock. I thought she was being a bit overdramatic in her examination of most of them--I mean, does nobody at all ever fly home with fossils? The Jurassic Coast is RIGHT THERE!!!--but even I admit that the rock that she actually took into the back to consult with the other security people about, the one approximately the size of three stacked paperback novels and with a tantalizing fossil just peeking out of it, might have been overkill on my part. When she struggled to heft it with one hand, I could sort of see her point about its appropriateness on an airplane where you can't even take thread scissors. I was prepared to give it up without a fuss, but the people in the back room eventually decided that even though it was big and heavy enough to brain someone with, I guess it wasn't technically forbidden, and so off it went with me to New York!

Where I was held up by security for nearly an hour, this time, for the exact same examination of all my rocks and fossils. The bad news is that there was only one inspector, and she took her sweet time on each of the massive pile of bags lined up for her to inspect, while all of us travelers shifted from foot to foot and checked our phones anxiously in hopes that our connecting flights had been delayed. The good news is that since we were all just standing there, we all got to see everyone's contraband. When the inspector unzipped one old guy's suitcase and revealed a giant water bottle FULL of water inside, I gasped out loud! Water is FORBIDDEN to cross the security line! 

In an airport, one finds one's entertainment where one can. Case in point: the family in the row ahead of us on our London to New York flight played Encanto on the seatback TV for their toddler FOR THE ENTIRE FLIGHT. Whenever the movie's ending would draw near, one parent would rewind it to the beginning and the toddler would go back to bopping along to "The Family Madrigal." It was awesome.

Finally, though, we only had one last leg of our flight left to fly--

--then just one last hour of driving left to drive, during which it turned out that it was equally terrifying to drive on the right side of the road after you'd been driving on the left all week, and back home we were, safe and sound.

A certain ginger gentleman was VERY happy to see us!

• Day 1: We made it to England!
• Day 2: Westminster Abbey, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, and Six
• Day 3: British Museum and Buckingham Palace
• Day 4: Mudlarks and Southwark
• Day 5: Natural History Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum
• Day 6: Pax Lodge, the Tower of London, and Afternoon Tea
• Day 7: Back and Forth by Boat to Greenwich
• Day 8: We Careen Our Way to Canterbury Cathedral and Dover Beach
• Day 9: Dover, Hastings, and a Holloway
• Day 10, Part 1: All the Giant Rocks
• Day 10, Part 2: Stonehenge, At Last!
• Day 11: To Avalon with King Arthur
• Day 12: Tintagel
• Day 13: In the Footsteps of Mary Anning
• Day 14: Homewards!