Yesterday, Jeremy and I managed to extend the shortest day of the year by engaging in a rather epic journey from Brighton to Arizona.

It all started off smoothly; we had no trouble getting to Heathrow, and though we showed up a bit later than scheduled because of the wet roads, we breezed through check-in and security and had plenty of time to grab a leisurely lunch at Wagamama.

When we went to check our gate after lunch, we saw our flight had been delayed an hour, so we got a coffee to kill some time. Another half-hour delay followed the hour delay, but at last our gate was announced and we made our way over to it. There was a lot of milling about going on at the gate but no boarding, so we stood and waited…and waited…and as we waited, I looked out at the darkening sky and my heart sank as it started to snow.

By the time we finally boarded the flight, it had gotten so wet and frosty out that the plane needed to be de-iced—but, of course, every plane at Heathrow needed to be de-iced, and there were only so many de-icing machines to go around, so we sat in the stiflingly warm plane and waited some more. Once we got de-iced, we waited in the queue for take-off for a good while, until finally at about 7:30—four and a half hours later than planned—we zipped down the runway, lifted off and were on our way.

The flight itself was fine, though for the first five hours of it the in-flight entertainment system wasn’t working, leading to much tedium and frustration. On the plus side, we had bulkhead seats, so we could stretch our legs a bit. On the minus side, 12 hours in an airplane seat (2 hours on the ground and 10 in the air) was hell on my already aching back, and it was a huge relief to finally land in Phoenix and hobble off the plane. Then there was just the 3-hour journey down to Sierra Vista (which I slept through), and finally, sometime after 2:00 AM—almost 24 hours after we initially set off—I got to collapse into a warm, comfy bed and sleep.

It was a looooong shortest day.