The day has arrived to depart. Yeah!!!!
We got up, took Sadie for a walk; had breakfast, did some catch-up work, surfed the net and boned up on our Australian slang. Fair Dinkum.
Our flight leaves Phoenix at 5 pm, 3 hr layover in LA, then 15.5 hrs to Sydney and then on to Brisbane. Gonna be a long day. The good news is that I managed to get us upgraded to business class for the LAX to SYD leg and it’s a fancy new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It will be nice to not have to endure that long of a flight in cattle class. A little dinner, a glass of wine and some Ambien and we’ll be in Sydney before you know it.
Despite our best effort to pack “light” we ended up with a lot of stuff. Sigh. I have one complete bag just full of camera gear so I should get a pass for that. Then we had masks, binoculars, stinger suits (don’t want to get whacked by a jelly fish in Aussie), and I had to take work clothes since I have a few days of work. Now before I tell you this next item that we packed, let me just make one thing clear: Shut your pie hole. Really. I don’t want to hear it from you super lightweight carry on, holier than thou, sneer-at-people-that-pack-too-much crowd. Yes, we are bringing our little Nespresso maker and pods to go with it.
Now, I know many of you are thinking, “why not just get coffee there?” Good point. But having made these trips without bringing the correct devices, the thought of 3 weeks of bad coffee was just not acceptable. Truly, that is a crime against humanity.
I did, however remembered to pack my Budgie Smugglers (speedo). But before you quit following my blog, they are not the type of Budgie Smugglers that would look good on this guy, they are the more modest old guy version that keep everything well hidden.
So fear not blog readers. No short Budgie Smugglers will be shown in this blog.
For anyone that read our blog from Patagonia, you will know that was a good lesson for me to listen to my wife more often. Although, I have, with great amount of persistence ignored this sage advice, much to my detriment. The one piece of advice I have heeded, is what time to get to the airport before departing on an international vacation. My normal modus operandi is to show up at the last minute. After the Argentina debacle, I was all too willing to show up 3 hrs early. The good news is that we get to hang in the lounge and start our vacation in style.
We had originally had an 8 pm flight to LAX with a 1.5 hr layover. However, based on my terrible track record of late, I moved the flight to 5 pm so we had a big buffer in case we got delayed in Phoenix. Susanne had mentioned the remnants of a hurricane were showing up on Sunday night. Well, it did look a bit ominous and sure enough we taxied out on the runway and they shut down the engines. Ugh. #Harveyed. We sat there for about 30 minutes and then got cleared for takeoff. Whew. I was grateful for the big buffer or else I would have been really stressed out.
Got to LAX and got to hang out in the Flagship Club which had dinner and wine and all sorts of yummies. Next up, the long flight to Sydney. Jason and Cynthia are leaving from SFO at about the same time. I guess it will be a race!
Susanne just pointed out that we don’t get an October 1st. There you have it.
okey dokey, chat with y’all on the other side of the planet.
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