The return to Los Angeles

So, as previously mentioned, I returned to LA about 7 weeks before I had originally intended. My flight was pretty uneventful. I flew from Marseille to London and changed airports in London. That was my biggest fear since I had so much luggage. How was I possibly going to get my luggage (which is always stressful for me since it generally gets lost) from one place to the next. Thankfully, it was really easy with luggage carts and helpful bus drivers. There is a direct airport to aiport transfer bus in London which minimized my total travel distance with all the luggage. Going through customs in London was a bit surprising since they asked me a ton of questions even though I was only in the city for like 5 hours. I guess that raised a flag with them though. Upon arriving in Heathrow, I was attempting to check in when the curt woman at the check-in desk told me that I didn't have a ticket and that I needed to contact my travel agent. I was a bit shocked since I had changed my original plane ticket and KNEW that my change was effective. I had called British Airways and confirmed my flight and had checked my flight status online multiple times. After unsuccessfully reaching my travel agent that I had used for this portion of the trip, I tried to remain calm. I went to the reservations desk (not the check-ins desk) for British Airways and basically told them to find my ticket. I am not sure what happened exactly but the nicer woman found my reservation and checked me in. British Airways (besides the rude woman at the check-in desk) is an AWESOME airline to fly. The food was pretty decent, all of the drinks were free (including alcohol) and there was a bunch of on-demand video and music to entertain me the entire 8 hour flight.

I flew into Chicago where Chris met me and YES! all of my luggage did arrive. We drove halfway to Whitehall to meet up with my mom who would take me the remainder of the way home. I spent about 48 hours in Whitehall. Most of that time was spent meeting my nephews for the first time. I can't believe how small yet how large they both are. I was smitten.
(Liam is on the left and Aiden is on the right)

I spent the remainder of my time, unpacking, repacking and deciding what was going back to LA with me on this trip and what I would get on the 2nd trip. It was a little like Christmas when I got home because I got to see clothes and things that never made it to France that I had planned on having there. After packing up my car, I was off. I met Will (who had flown into Chicago to meet me for the trip) that night (Thursday) and we drove about 2 hours before stopping somewhere near the Illinois border. At first I was a little nervous about not really having hotel reservations but that fear quickly vanished as I saw so many hotels with vacancy.

Friday was the beginning of the huge push to get across the country. On Friday, I had the unfortunate opportunity to once again drive through Iowa and Nebraska on the infamous I-80 highway. I can't tell you how much I despise driving through these wasteland states. There is NOTHING to see. The corn wasn't even up yet so it was just rows and rows of ungrown nothingness. Anyway, the plan was to stop right over the Colorado border in Julesburg, CO. Unfortunately, Julesburg was pretty much empty and devoid of anything that resembled a city worth staying in. Since we weren't super exhausted yet, we made it to Sterling, CO.

Saturday, we began the journey across the entire beautiful state of Colorado and arrived in Beaver, UT for the night. What can I say about Beaver, UT? Well, there's not much to comment on except that there's a correctional facility there and NOTHING is open after 11:00pm. We arrived right before 11pm but weren't worried about finding something to eat. If all else fails we said, we can go to fast food. Well, apparently in Utah, the sidewalks roll up at 11pm (including McDonald's drive thru!). We had to settle on snacks from the gas station across the street from our hotel. They did have cheese curds though! That was awesome. I had definitely missed those. Apparently, Beaver, UT is home to a cheese curd emporium that we really wanted to check out but they were closed on Sundays. :(

Sunday was definitely the hardest day of driving we had. We drove through Utah, Nevada, Arizona (though it's just a tiny part of Arizona) before arriving in the desert of California. The views on the Saturday portion of the trip was amazing. Colorado and Utah are quite beautiful to drive through. Nevada and California desert are less desirable. Lacking air conditioning became a serious issue by the time we passed Las Vegas. We were stuck in a long traffic jam after we passed Vegas and my car started to get a bit overheated and the braking response was strange. We decided to pull over as soon as we could into a shady gas station area and let it cool down for awhile. I did push my car pretty hard since she hadn't been driven in 8 months and her first drive is across the country. Anyway, the car was fine after about a half hour of cooling down. We finally arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday, May 17 evening after 2,291 miles.

I think I will probably post here more about what I am doing now and how my show is going for those interested. I don't think I have much more to post about France though I will probably have at least one more item on France to write about my first week here and what culture shock I have experienced.