Back to Reality

At the second attempt we managed to leave Panama City Beach at 9.00am on Tuesday morning.
A different route to start off this time and and we made good progress all day up though Alabama until we hit Nashville, Tennessee at rush hour with full bladders. Not much rushing going on but we eventually cleared the city, emptied the bladders and picked up the pace again.
Having planned to take our time & get a hotel for the night we completely ignored the plan and once again pressed on through the night, swapping over the driving duties every 2 or 3 hours while the other tried to sleep. During the night the highlight was Cincinnati which looked amazing again all lit up and the worse place was Detroit by a loooooong shot. What a place, and exactly as I would have imagined it - huge auto factories and chimneys pumping pollution into the air. Maybe it looks better in daylight?!
We passed through the border control into Canada, amazingly without getting pulled over or searched and subsequently realised how big Ontario is, as we then sat on the 401 for nearly 5 hours until we finally made it home at 8.30am.

I am so glad we made this trip - the driving was obviously knackering, but it was great to get some good sun & beach action. It was just amazing to watch Pam & Paula and all the other athletes of all abilities do their Ironman all day and run down alongside the finish line with them. A fantastic week and I am pretty sure we will go back & do this race at some point.