Fairfax County

12:00
I’ve done a few swift turnarounds over the years - but I think only for work trips. This is comfortably the shortest home pit-stop I can remember that’s purely for fun purposes. Just enough time to refresh my underwear selection, spend some time with the boys, and plan out my next trip. Solo sojourn this time, so I’m back to sticking to a tight(er) budget - something that’s particularly tough to do in the US at the moment. It’s a road-trip, and I managed to snag a really good car hire deal. There’s some risk attached though. It’s one of these ‘mystery car’ deals - no idea what you’re driving till you turn up to collect it. At best, it’ll be a big and comfy SUV or sedan. At worst, well - let’s try and stay positive.

I’ve got accommodation booked for my first few nights in Virginia / West Virginia, and then have a rough route planned, which’ll take me down through Kentucky and Tennessee and into Alabama, then across Georgia and down into Florida, where I’m excited to catch up with some very dear friends. I’m conscious I’m heading through the deep South, and what is largely staunch Republican territory. With any luck, I might get to attend a Trump rally while I’m there.

In line with my budget conscious approach, I write this from a National Express coach. A return ticket has set me back £30, where the train would have been £80, and a cab in each direction several hundred. There’s a distinct hint of murk to the weather. Checking the weather report for the Washington DC area, it looks like I’ll be landing into a balmy evening of temperatures in the mid 20s, and heat index that’s actually the same. After our recent heat-based experiences in Thailand, this is better than good news.

14:30
There are several stops between Brighton and Heathrow. At each, the driver leaps down to help passengers load/unload their luggage. Every time he gets back on the coach, there’s an irrepressible honk of cat piss. Not ‘a smell that’s a bit like cat piss.’ Actual cat piss.

Other than that, the journey to Heathrow is a piece of, well - piss. Deffo one to use in future for those all too rare occasions when time’s not of the essence. From bus to bar takes a little over 30 minutes, which for Terminal 3 is lightning speed. And, result! I’ve got a free upgrade. I recently got my Virgin Silver status back, and it seems this is my reward. It’s to Premium Economy, which given I’m going to try and sleep for as much of the flight as possible, is a treat. I’ve got to be sensible on the booze front - I’m picking up my car at Dulles Airport on arrival, so best not to be three sheets when I do… That’s all 10 hours from now though, so I celebrate the start of a new adventure with one of my favourite ciders (Orchard Pig’s Reveller) in one of my favourite airport bars (T3’s The Curator).

23:30
Body clock is all over the shop. Flight is a little delayed taking off, but we’re Westward bound by 18:00. Shouldn’t change our arrival time. My upgrade has actually put me in a bulkhead seat, so I’ve got a ton of leg room. I have a glass of bubbles on boarding, and a G+T soon after take-off. I um and ah about a wine with my meal, and come down firmly on the side of ah. I start to watch Oppenheimer, having not quite got around to it yet. My eyes are heavy though, and I can feel a nap coming on. I sleep for around 3 hours, and wake up feeling a lot more refreshed. We’re only 90 minutes out from DC as well = RESULT.

There’s an elderly lady sat next to me. Well, not quite next to me. There are 3 parallel seats in the bulkhead. We each have the aisle seats, and there’s an empty seat between us. She’s feeling the cold, bless her - and is wrapped up in about 3 blankets. A member of the cabin crew does the rounds offering duty free shopping. I tend to think this is a bit of a thing of the past, as online shopping has largely equalised the discounts available on-board. I sometimes grab a bottle of Bourbon at the airport if I’m heading somewhere where room drinks might be tricky to come by. Anyways, I’ve got my noise cancelling cans on, so can’t hear my colleague’s discussion with the flight attendant. It goes on for some time. Eventually, a bottle of perfume turns up, along with a bottle of tequila, and it’s the tequila that surprises me a little. I’d perhaps expected gin, or maybe a liqueur of some description. At an opportune moment, I ask Margaret (for that is her name) whether it’s a gift for someone she’s visiting. Oh no, she replies - it’s for me. I love me a bit of the old Tequila. And I now can’t get an image of her doing tequila shots with lime and salt out of my head.

I use the last hour of the flight to finish watching Oppenheimer, which is a genuinely staggering bit of cinema. It's a period of history I've always found fascinating, but I've only ever had a passing knowledge of the work that was done on the Manhattan Project. Cillian Murphy's and RDJ's performances are both stellar, but the entire cast delivers.

We land at 20:20, pretty much bang on time. I’m a little disheartened on arrival into the immigration hall to see a lengthy queue for ‘visitors’ and only 2 TSA agents checking documents. The queue crawls at a glacial pace for an hour. I don’t feel too tired, even though my body thinks it’s 02:00. I’m just bored. Once the sizeable US Nationals queue has cleared, the TSA team open up those desks for foreigners, and things start to move along a little quicker. By 22:00, I’m looking for my hire car. Thrifty have told me to pick the car up at the Thrifty parking lot, but have given no indication as to where this is. I ask a few people, who send me in various wrong directions. I then nearly get run down by a minibus. It’s only when I turn around to yell at the driver, that I notice the van says ‘Hertz / Dollar / Thrifty.’ Kismet.

At the hire car parking lot, I meet a lovely Brazilian lady who works for Hertz, and we chat for a few minutes about my trip there later this year. She warns me not to go walking in the favela after dark. I mean - thanks Brazilian lady, but I was not really planning to. She also recommends a few towns/cities to visit on the hugely long stretch of Atlantic coastline, and this is great intelligence to have. My car is a Kia Soul - a kinda small SUV type square boxy thing. It’s comfortable enough though.

Leaving Dulles is unnecessarily complex. To be fair, leaving Heathrow when you’re unfamiliar with the local roads, have been travelling for 17 hours and it’s dark, would probably also be challenging. I finally find a road that takes me where I need to go. My home for the next couple of nights is a motel. Simple, basic, clean. The bed looks very inviting… I’m hoping that having made it nearly midnight (or 05:00 in the UK) means that I might crack jet lag more quickly than I historically have done when travelling West. I have horrendous memories of 01:00/02:00 wake ups in Minneapolis years ago, but I wasn’t half the sleeper then, that I am now.

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