Thomson Airlines Boeing 757 Explorer One (G-OOBF)
London, England
Friday, February 26, 2010

    As scheduled, we departed the hotel at 8 am following breakfast at the Hotel La Mamounia. After clearing immigration, we boarded Explorer One for the last time for our relatively short flight to London. The three and a half hours went by very quickly as each of our expert lecturers gave their five-to-ten minute final comments and recaps of the trip and Jay presented the preliminary version of his multimedia DVD of photographs, video, and sounds of the expedition. He will polish the work once he gets home and then send it off to National Geographic for some final touches and reproduction. In six to eight weeks, I will have a copy of this monumental effort by Jay to remind me of the expedition in addition to my own notes, journal, and photographs.

    We arrived at Luton Airport where we passed through British immigration. Then came the breaking up of the group as we split into four groups – those transferring to central London for an extended stay, those headed to the Gatwick Airport for flights home, those headed to the Hilton at Heathrow for flights tomorrow, and those of us headed to the Sofitel Hotel at Heathrow for flight tomorrow.

    The traffic in the afternoon was heavy, so it took about 90 minutes to get from Luton to the Sofitel at Heathrow. Check-in was quick and I just enjoyed lounging around. I took a little time to shuffle all my gear between my various bags and then went to sleep early. After all, I need to rest so that I have the energy to survive the eleven-hour flight to Los Angeles tomorrow. I have been falling a bit behind in getting my notes translated into journal entries. I plan to get all caught up on the long flight across the Atlantic and North America.

    It has been a long, fast-paced expedition around the world. It seems a long time ago when we were snowed-in at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC during the Blizzard of 2010. I’m glad of having this journal, because all our many stops during the last few weeks are beginning to merge together. I’m going to be busy for quite a while going through all my photographs and getting them ready for posting to the website. Of course, that job will also be delayed somewhat by the expedition to Baja during the middle of March.