Day Thirtytwo

June and Norman dropped me off at Heathrow and I fairly quickly got checked in. Once through passport control I was amazed to see Michelle Bradshaw, an ex Hutt Valley High school teacher. She was looking for breakfast and I for a coffee so we passed the next 90 minutes or so in animated conversation which was a great way to pass what would otherwise would have been a tedious wait for our boarding calls. Like me, Michelle had been away for five or six weeks and she was heading off back to NZ.
The flight to Chicago, all in daylight, was uneventful. The views of sea ice and snow covered mountains over Greenland and I think Labrador were spectacular. On arrival in Chicago I found that my flight to Portland was delayed. Departure time was pushed back frequently during the evening and about 30 minutes before our final boarding time it started to snow heavily. We boarded and sat on the plane for over an hour waiting for a pilot. He arrived and told us that the plane had to be de-iced but the guys working the deicer had given up for the moment because of the weather!! Eventually we were de-iced and we took off. Four hours of that dreadful limbo between sleeping and waking and we arrived in Portland at 2.00am. Nic was waiting and had kept a taxi waiting for us. It was good to see him and equally good to collapse into bed at about 3.00am nearly 24 hours after leaving London.