A Day of Travelling

Haysi still has no power. So, I left my cousin Misti's on the 27th and went to Tazewell to stay with my friend Joni and her family. We got up early on the 28th and got all of our stuff ready for our trip to England. We left around noon and met my friend Cody and his friends in Bluefield to eat lunch. It was a good time.

We drove straight to Washington, DC where we stayed with my good friend Jordan for the night. He is a volunteer with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and I'm pretty sure I have mentioned him in previous posts. It was good to catch up with him.

We woke up yesterday morning and got ready. We went to Gravelly Point, a park in DC, to watch a few airplanes take off. It is one of the best places in America to watch planes take off because they do it right over your head! The park is literally right at the end of the parkway! After figuring out that it was too cold to watch planes, we headed south of Washington, DC into Maryland to visit my grandpa for a little while. We stayed with him for about an hour then headed back into the city to pick up Jordan.

STORY: On the way to pick up Jordan, I was attempting to find a set of spare keys in my center console. Not paying attention to what I was doing, I ended up rear-ending a lady. It did nothing at all to either of our cars and she was extremely nice about it.

We picked up Jordan then we were off to the airport. I agreed to let Jordan borrow my car while I am in England so he could visit some friends, so he took us to the airport and dropped us off. We said our good-byes and headed inside. Jordan used his lunch break to drop us off and we were at the airport at 12:45...our flight didn't leave until 6:15! So, we had around 5 hours to spare. The British Airways counter didn't open until 3PM so we just sat around and read for a while before we checked in. We then dropped our bags, got our tickets, went through security, grabbed our lunch, and arrived at our gate.

STORY: Around 5:15, the sunset was beautiful. So, I decided I was going to take some pictures of the sunset from our gate. Security is really tight because of the incident that happened last week with the Northwest Airlines flight in Detroit. I was standing near the window taking pictures of the sunset and a TSA agent came up to me and this is how the conversation progressed:

(Zach is zooming in on the sunset with a happy face)
TSA Agent: Sir, what are you taking pictures of?
Zach: The sunset.
TSA Agent: Are you sure you're taking pictures of ONLY the sunset?
Zach: Yeah.
TSA Agent: ONLY the sun?
Zach: Um, yea. Would you like to see the picture?
TSA Agent: Actually, I would.
(Zach shows him the picture and comments on how the sunset is beautiful.)
TSA Agent: And you're sure you were photographing only the sun?
Zach: Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
TSA Agent: Thank you.
(Zach walks away laughing.)

We boarded the plane. British Airways was amazing! Me and Joni made friends with the girl who sat beside us so we talked to her for a while. About an hour and a half into the flight, I took a Xanax my cousin gave me to sleep. Needless to say, I feel asleep and slept until we were descending into London! It was great.

We arrived at the airport, went through customs, our friend Eddie picked us up, and we headed north to the village of Raunds where his sister lives. It is a neat little place! We slept from about 9 this morning to 2 this afternoon then woke up and explored the village some. So far, it's great.

Tomorrow, we're headed to London for New Years! I will update again soon.

Until next time, Zach will leave it at that.