I decided not to write this yesterday as we spent the time after landing just relaxing and enjoying the puppies. Yesterday we got up earlyish and finished up packing pretty quickly. We had found out the night before that the train strikes that have been going on sporadically in the UK would finally affect us. The Heathrow Express was targeted and shutdown all day Saturday which meant we needed to find an alternative route to get to the airport. Luckily the new Elizabeth line has opened to the airport and in theory this made things even easier as the station we needed to get to was a little more luggage friendly (or so we thought).

We did end up needing to navigate a set of stairs but overall pretty simple connection at Tottenham Court station and then a long ride to Heathrow.

The one other downside of this is that it seems like only 1 in every 3 or 4 trains goes to terminal 5 which we needed and our initial one went to terminal 4. This means getting off at the terminal 2/3 stop and waiting for an appropriate train going to terminal 5 which was about 20 minutes for us. One of the many wonderful things about traveling with Becky is that she is always willing even when I go a little overboard to be ready to go early and this made the slight delays and route changes go smoothly. We got through security and bag drop off with little issue and that meant we could grab a big sit down breakfast before heading to the gate. After eating we caught the terminal train to the C gate area and saw our gate right away. Bathroom stop and a quick duty free whiskey purchase later and we were on our way home. Not too much to say about the flight.. this one is maybe easier in a lot of ways as it is daytime for both your departure city (11:25a departure) and arrival city (3:30p arrival). We landed a little early and got through customs easily (thanks global entry!) And headed home to our reunion with our crazy puppies. I caught up on F1 and Becky watched some TV in the afternoon then we tried our best to stay up and watch the Austin FC game but we were fading fast. A weather delay late in the first half sealed the deal and we both went to bed and slept soundly all night.. well except for a bit when Becky kicked Lewis off the bed (he’s ok). Today we’ve been getting unpacked and starting on laundry. Another successful trip! I will post some more pictures on the back stories and probably write up a recap from my side tomorrow.