Days 15 & 16 - Lancaster, CA to Chicago, IL

After one final emptying and repacking for the flight back to Chicago, and the jettisoning of unwanted stuff on our friends (sorry guys, it could have been worse, you should see the piles of stuff we left with other people) we headed back to LA. Selling the Mini was a wrench that we have already covered, before heading over for a long wait at LAX for our flight back to Chicago, eventually making it back to Neil's parents at nearly 1 am. You've just got to love weather delays. (On a side note, we did fly Virgin America, and apart from the delay in getting off the ground, we enjoyed the experience, with cabin mood lighting and live satellite TV available on the our personal touchscreens.)

"The white zone is for the loading and unloading of passenger only; there is no pakring in the red zone". Coincidentally, we took the same air route as made famous in the film 'Airplane!', though with less drama (nobody ate the fish).

On Tuesday, we tackled our mountain of luggage for the last time, trying to get it into some semblance of something reasonable to carry (luckily reasonable is a somewhat elastic term). Selina and Jill headed downtown on the train and enjoyed a very civilised lunch whilst Neil and Raymond followed on with all the luggage completely filling the rest of the car. Farewells were said before we were met by an unexpectedly large group of AECOMites for drinks by the station before our train. This worked out extremely well for us, as we had extra hands to carry the bags (and no, none of them had bowling balls in, despite the complaints).

One last drink at the Union Station bar after checking our bags

Our hotel for the evening, the Amtrak Lake Shore Limited

It's been incredibly hard to say goodbye to everyone, and Chicago. It really is a fabulous city and enjoyed it so much. We've been incredibly lucky to have such great friends and we'll miss everyone and everything so much. Keep in touch!

Now, onto New York!