I had plans to do a sentimental last trip in the 50 state journey post today. United Airlines thought it would be better to instead give us 32 hours of intensive togetherness while running on about an hour of sleep. 🤪

From yesterday’s post, we made it to the Anchorage airport, and were about to board our overnight flight departing at 8:56pm. We loaded up, and everything was fine… other than the AC not working so we spent 7 hours in a 75° cabin. Not a restful night of sleep.

We landed on time, switched our phones from airplane mode at 7:35am, and BOOM…

United was offering a 14-hour layover 😳 We called the customer service rep and they had all of zero options… according to United, we’re no planes going to RDU from Newark, LaGuardia or Kennedy with 4 available seats. We said no thanks, give us a refund – we could drive home before we sat here until 9:40pm. And then who’s to say they won’t cancel again?

We started working on a rental car. There were literally no rental cars in the Newark/New York area? Why? Because it is the sporting super storm in NYC this weekend: NBA Championship Game and the World CupZ And let’s not even get started on the guy who heard us talking about rental cars and wanted to ride with us?!?! I’m sure it would have been fine but dude, we’ve had no sleep and now in crisis travel mode! It’s not the time to make new friends!

We were starting to look at Amtrak for a train to Raleigh. And then, thank you Jesus, we found a rental car with SIXT. We’ve never used this company before but they were a life saver today!

So after a redeye sweatbox flight, we hit the road for a 7 hour road trip!

Lawd have mercy! It’s been a day!!

And why is there so much doggone traffic on I95???

And why did the last day of our Alaskan vacation involve a drive through New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia?

Finally, we made it to RDU at 6:03pm, turned in our rental car, picked up our luggage (which did get to fly on the 2pm flight out of Newark), and hit the road (again) for home!

And as a bonus welcome home gift, it was blazing hot!

Oh my goodness! 32 hours after we woke up on Friday in Glacier View, Alaska, we finally made it home! What an epic end to our 50 States Journey! One day we will laugh about this… not today, but one day.

Trip stats:

Total miles: 2,992 miles

Miles today: 564

Total steps: 227,721

State(s) Covered: one GIANT

Mom’s Cafe: 2 loaves of bread, 4lbs of turkey, 2lbs of ham, 1lb of roast beef, 1.5lbs of cheddar, 2 heads of lettuce, 3 cases of water, plus chips, oranges, cookies, Diet Cokes and other snacks.

So many ornaments for the travel tree and 50 states worth of the best time together ♥️♥️♥️

Couple of flashback photos from our first and last states: