Although we had everything done <G> we were still an hour late leaving the house. Tiffany was there early and the babies knew something was up. My memory isn't what it used to be and I forgot to send the itinerary to everyone who should have it.
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Charlene, Keith, DeAnna & Jacob drove us to the airport and stayed with us until the plane loaded. We were on a United A320 airbus. If you ever get the chance to travel that way, skip it. I could hardly believe they would pack us in so tight for a four hour flight. (Picture college kids stuffed into a phone booth) <G>
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The flight itself was uneventful, the best kind. And the landing at LAX was a WOW! We could hardly tell when he touched down.
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Bill was seated next to a rancher named Grover who had previously been in Australia. He and Bill talked for most of the trip. I think Bill enjoyed the conversation even if he was solidly stuck between Grover and me.
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Our stopover in LA wasn't nearly as long as we anticipated. We were quite late getting to LA and by the time we waited for everyone with a close connection to de-plane, found the shuttle to the other terminal, and then found our gate, we only had about an hour to wait.
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While waiting I met a lovely woman who would be traveling with us and I could tell right off that she wasn't going to Oz for a visit. Her name was Joyce Herald and she kindly went through our itinerary making suggestions for our optional tours and free time.
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Here in the US we have 'gate hold' procedures. This basically means that airports no longer 'stack' aircraft waiting to land. Now a plane doesn't take off until a runway is clear and a gate open for deplaning. Going to Sydney was slightly different. Sydney has noise restrictions and a 747 is not allowed to land before 6am. The winds were such that we would be in Sydney before 6am so after the plane loaded, we sat on the runway for an hour. We landed Australia at 6:01am.
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Our plane was a 747 configured with 3 seats on each side and 4 in the middle. I don't know how many rows, I didn't walk to the back but the rear was so far away I could barely see it. The plane was full as far as we could see except for one seat. The Lord blessed us with an empty seat in our row of three. There was plenty of leg room and all four of our carry-ons fit in the overhead leaving us with even more room.
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Air New Zealand played movies all night. I, for one, wasn't up to staying awake for movies. Between movies they would put a map on the screen showing where we were in relation to various landmarks. (LA, Hawaii, Fiji, NZ, Sydney) We crossed the equator first and then the international dateline. It was two firsts for both of us (and we slept through them).
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Normally I package our daily medication in separate containers, one container for mine and one for Bill's. At the end of each day the bottles should be empty. The night before we left I awoke at 4am with the feeling that it was absolutely necessary to separate the pills into regular bottles with the original label on each. We probably could have gone through customs with nothing to declare but since we had nothing to hide, we said we had medication and food. The customs lady was totally unimpressed with our peanut butter crackers but she inspected each bottle of medication asking what it was for. Many of them she already knew.
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