There comes a time in every trip when you’re ready to go home - under normal circumstances this would have been on the day of or the day after the last day of sightseeing. Not this time though - to avoid wasting annual leave I’d decided I’d work remotely for one day so I could then fly home over the weekend.

One advantage of having awoken early each day of this trip, is that when it came to working remotely I was able to do so from an earlier time so I’d be done by early afternoon. During my lunch break I went for a run around Ajax. James had offered to drive me to a nearby beach along Lake Ontario, advising that the run from there up towards the nuclear power station is a reasonable one.

Instead, I went off running by myself and decided I’d run to that beach, and instead of running along it would turn around and run back - this was just under ten kilometres, so not bad as a way of building back up after a marathon. In fact, in between long stops for traffic at signals, I was going faster than I’d expected. I guess that’s the advantage of a slower marathon than planned, and quick recovery - it means I could get back into training sooner.

After lunch I had a few more hours to work before I could go off and explore a little more. I didn’t go far, and when I got back I sat and read for a while. Our evening meal reminded me somewhat of the BBQ places we’d been to on our travels - James had cooked BBQ ribs with beans, jacket potato, and sweet corn. It was almost like being back in Kansas.

My last full day in Canada had passed by quickly, and the following morning I took my time getting ready. Since we’d got no plans for the time I’d got left it was a useful time to begin planning another trip - one which we’d already booked flights for, but nothing else. It looked like Switzerland in the new year would be even more expensive than Chicago.

By midday we’d finished our planning, and I had just a few hours left before I’d need to be heading to the airport. This was time enough to see Lake Ontario one last time, taking the lakeside path for a few kilometres. It was then about forty minutes to drive to the airport.

The check-in and security were quick, uncharacteristically so - I’m used to slow moving queues. My time overseas was at an end though - I boarded the flight and began the long flight home.