Back in the UK. It's raining. Peh. As always I'm suffering from jet-lag, being both so tired I could drop and yet so awake I could spit. Which I won't because that would be rude.Iowa went pretty well. It was really nice to slow down the pace after LA and it's becoming a comfortably familiar place. During the last week of the trip I ventured down to that river/railway bridge several times and also decided to walk through the woods that line the Sioux River. It instantly felt like a place I can only define as one of magic and power (sounds utterly corny, but there's a real atmosphere down there, a real sense of both anticpation and calm). There's a smaller lake behind the obvious one and it looks like a combination of both wild undergrowth and dumping ground for cars. Ancient vehicles and branches poke out from both the riverbank and it's a meeting of worlds. Photographic paradise as well. Hope to take more there next time.
Jill had to work a lot of the last week I was there, but the plan was always to stay local and there was time to take the car out exploring some of the nearby counties (and hey I managed to put put my lottery win - $14, count it $14!!!! - towards
Due to leaving some DVDs/CDs in LA and claiming a clothing drawer at Jill's, I had less to bring back, so there wasn't the weight problems with luggage there could have been - I'd actually managed to consolidate two cases down to one! Jill and her sister took me across to Sioux Falls airport on Friday afternoon and due to incoming weather conditions, the check-in guy took my case and then suggested he put me on an earlier flight. It worked well as due to rolling delays I didn't get into Chicago long before I would have done anyway (and my actual flight would have been way too late to make the Heathrow connection). Sat next to a Republican on the plane and ended up politely debating the merits of
Into Heathrow by about 8:20am, King's Cross by about 9:45am and in Leeds around 12:30pm ish. Asleep by 3:00pm-ish for a couple of hours and then a decent 8hrs through the night.
I'll just take it easy through today and plan to get an early night. Then I should really start planning my next visit. Or rather financing it. On that note, details on the new issue of Verbatim following shortly...
For the moment.... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
