At last, I got a chance to sleep in. Eliot and Kristine’s couch was very comfortable. We took our time getting started. We had done a lot of stuff the last 3 days and we were pretty tired.

We had been warned to watch out for some of the neighborhood cats. In England, Eliot and Kristine explained to us, the rules/customs about how animals are handled are a lot different. Cats can not be de-clawed and are basically given free reign. Eliot and Kristine have a cat door for Beck their main cat. They also kind of have a second cat, “Big Cat”, they pretty sure he’s leading a double life though and has another family somewhere else. “Big cat” likes to sleep in the guest bed Heather and Elysia were sleeping in, he is shy around people he doesn’t know though and if he showed up he did not wake anyone up. I might have had to deal with “Orange Cat”, apparently “he” is rarely seen by anyone, but he likes to sleep on the short couch in the living room (I was sleeping on the long one) based on the hair that is left behind. No sign of him though, if “Orange Cat” stopped by he was not loud enough to wake me up.

I was able to sleep a little bit more on Saturday morning, but I was still out of bed by 7. The three of us went down to Starbucks again to get on the Internet. Starbucks was closed. It did not open until 8am. I assumed Starbucks would have some international rule about opening early. I guess not. So we hung out in a small park until it opened.

We walked over to Buckingham Palace, and took some pictures in front of the palace. Then we walked down to a double decker bus tour. It works where you buy a ticket for a day and you can get on and off as much as you like. Heather and I had already seen a few of the things on the tour so we rode the bus all the way to Regent’s Park. It was very nice. There were a lot of flowers blooming. They had all these named plots that looked like they had rose bushes in them that were named like race horses. It was too early for the roses, but I’ll bet it is amazing with they are in bloom.

I was looking forward to a long nights sleep, which I needed. Good’ol jet lag kicked in and I was up at 5:00am. Which would have been about 11pm at home, so I have no idea what went on there. I was hoping to get caught up later that night.

I went down to a coffee shop at 6am, got on the Internet and finished up some work I had left over from the day before. Then breakfast at the hotel. Then we headed out walking.

After work I went home, threw the rest of my stuff together, I missed my bus downtown (or it just never came, who knows). Fortunately, I have a roommate who was happy to take me downtown (thanks Ben). Then I took the light rail to the international airport. I met Heather there. We said “goodbye” to our bags and headed through security. I can’t remember the last time there was no line at security. I guess I need to fly more on weeknights.

Time for another trip. This time Carol is staying home. I’m going to Europe with a couple of my friends (I’ll introduce them later).

Here’s the plan. I’m getting on a plane tomorrow night (technically later today) and flying to London England. I’ll spend a couple of days in the city, then we’re taking a train up to Mildenhall England to visit my brother and sister-in-law. We’ll spend a couple of days up there. Then a train, over night ferry and another train to Amsterdam Netherlands. We’ll spend a few days there. Then one more train to Paris France. We’ll spend a few days there. Then fly home. I’ll be gone for about 12 days.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Christmas music, some it’s OK, and there are a few songs I really like, but I usually have to be careful to avoid it until the few weeks right around Christmas or I risk getting burned out.

I’m borrowing (was inspired by) something from a blog I read pretty regularly called Planet Dan. In fact he just came out with his 2010 christmas playlist.

Me and Dan don’t exactly have the same musical tastes but there were some really good songs he found. So, between the stuff Dan has picked and a few Christmas albums/LPs I’ve collected that I like I figure I’ve got enough material to make my own Christmas music playlist this year.

I got a call from the impound lot of Sunday afternoon. I did not get it because I was at the Vikings game (great game). They found Carol. No word on her condition though.

Monday morning I planned on picking her up. Before I could call to confirm things with the impound lot a got a call from the officer in charge of my case. He explained that they had arrested the person they found driving the car (there were two people in the car when they found it, they may have arrested both of them).

The final day only entailed about an hour or so on the road, at least, that was about when I think I got home, I was pretty tired.

I was just going to take one load of luggage inside, then go straight bed and take care of the rest in the morning. I found a little energy left once I got inside though so I went ahead and unloaded Carol. Then slept, slept for a long time.

I ended up visiting with Isaac most of the morning. I do not talk with him enough and we had a some catching up to do. Typically Isaac gets Friday off so it being a Thursday night he didn’t mind staying up late. We actually ended up staying up so late talking I got to see Allison (Isaac’s wife), as she was getting up to go to work. Then I decided it was time for me to go to bed.

The sleeping in the car thing actually worked out pretty well, I got a good night sleep and woke up early and a ready to roll. The good nights sleep was at least partially due to the quilt my Mom gave me for my birthday when I was in North Carolina (thanks Mom).

Got back on the road and almost immediately left the freeway and headed north into Alabama. The goal, was of course the town of Jachin Alabama.