My Own Bed!

Well the flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles was uneventful, and fairly comfortable.
It certainly helped that I recognised one of the flight staff from a previous trip, and when I said hello she recognised us!
That allowed us a few additional perks that made the trip very comfortable.
The trip went quickly enough, in fact, it seems the more times I fly that trip the shorter it feels. Or perhaps it’s just that I’m getting used to it.

I have to admit though, that by the time we got off the plane, cleared Immigration and Customs I was starting to feel pretty tired, and impatient, so was Mark, so there was a little bit of snitching going on between us.

Tensions eased quickly enough after coffee and some lunch, just in time for our next flight from Los Angeles to Seattle, also uneventful, then home where I unpacked, did the laundry, and any moment now, will climb into my bed, my very own bed that I’ve missed so much.

Good night all!

Packed and Ready for Takeoff

We’re all checked into the airport and cleared through Customs and ready to go on our flights back to Seattle via Los Angeles.

We’re both exhausted from a late night and a heinously early start to the morning, but at least my Qantas status allows us both to access the Business Class lounge and enjoy the free Internet access, breakfast and other facilities.

So far I’ve had a bloody mary, which was delicious and a bowl of porridge, all very civilised. But, the vodka has started kicking in already, and my eyelids are starting to slide down my face. At this rate I’ll be asleep the moment I get on the plane.

Thanks to everyone who made our trip so memorable, it’s sad to go, but we’ll be back soon enough.

Next time you hear from me I’ll be in Los Angeles, and reliving the same day again. Fortunately it’s an auspicious one; 10/10/10, and due to the timezone changes, we arrive before we left and get to do it all over again.

Twice as lucky? We’ll see.

Farewell and love to everyone!

Last Day…

It’s the end of a very long day and I’m lying on the bed at the Airport Hilton at Melbourne winding down in readiness for my flights back to Seattle in the morning.

The morning started with breakfast with Mark’s Mother, brother, and Step-Father, then a couple of hours spent packing the suit cases.
We now have an additional suitcase as there was no way everything we’ve acquired was going to fit into the original three.

Paused for a break and a coffee and caught up with Mark’s sister Danielle, driven down to Carrum to say goodbye to our nephew Taylor, then off to see my Grandmother, who always manages to make me cry when it comes to saying farewell. It doesn’t matter how hard I try not to, the minute her eyes tear up, so do mine.
Back to my Mum’s to say farewell to her, my sister and nephews, then back to get the last of our luggage and head to the airport.
On the way we stopped off to see Mark’s other sister Alida, her husband Steve and our gorgeous nieces, Jasmine and Chloe and brand new nephew “Baby Karro”. His name is top secret until his Bris.

Mere minutes after arriving at the airport and checking into the Hotel our friends Scott and Leandro picked us up and whisked us back into Melbourne for a later dinner (we’d not eaten since breakfast as we’ve been so busy) then back to the Hotel.

It won’t be long now until it’s morning again and we’ll be boarding a plan.

Farewells are always sad, but I’ve had an amazing time!

xoxo to everyone!

I Might Have Missed It…

Since I’m flying across the International Dateline in the very near future, I’m not going to get a Monday.

But, despite my not having one, it’s still a very important day for a close friend of mine, it’s her birthday!

Happy Birthday Sanda! I hope you have the most amazing day, and I’ll see you very soon. 🙂

Las Vegas Day 2

Well the title is pretty self explanatory.

We arrived in Las Vegas yesterday, our very first visit to “The Strip”, and oh my, what an assault to the senses.

So many lights, sounds, smells, people etc.  I have to admit given the amount of walking we’ve had to do I’ve struggled a little bit, but I’ve managed.  The hardest part of the day was going to see Cirque de Soleil’s “O”.

The show is absolutely amazing.  The issue, with the heart issues I’m having, my Doctor has me on diuretics, which so far have been amazing.  Inside of 2 days I’m already starting to feel a lot better.  The torturous part is that the show is water based.   Amazing, but ALL water.

Need I remind you, I’m on diuretics.  They make you pee.  A lot!

So you can imagine.   The show is amazing and I don’t want to miss a second of it.  I’m dying to go to the bathroom, and there’s water everywhere.

Argh!  I survived though, and heartily recommend the show to anyone who is fortunate enough to get to Las Vegas.

Today has been fun too.  Not only did I get to see the hotel that my parents stayed at when they were here a couple of years ago (Treasure Island), but I also got to go up in a Helicopter, fly out to the Grand Canyon, land at the bottom for a champagne picnic, then fly over Las Vegas at dusk seeing all the lights.   Amazing.

One problem.  On the way to the Grand Canyon we had some turbulence, and the woman sitting directly in front of me had to utilise her air sick bag.

Gross!  I couldn’t hear her being sick for the noise of the helicopter and the headphones I was wearing.  But sadly, I’m a sympathetic vomiter.  If one person pukes, I do too, and I could smell it.   I can almost still smell it now, a couple of hours after the event.  Needless to say, and I’m a little embarassed to admit, I had to reach for my own sick bag, for the first time ever, and I’ve been in many helicopters, planes, hot air balloons, rides etc and never had a problem previously.   The only upside was that I’d not really eaten much, so other than breaking out into a ridiculous sweat and heaving with a bag at my face, I wasn’t actually ill.

I did pass on the champagne.  I’m not stupid.  Unfortunately, the woman who puked on the way out imbibed.  Needless to say on the way back, and this time she was sitting next to me, she puked two more times.  This time I managed to survive and retain my dignity.

On a side note, while standing at the bottom of the Grand Canyon I met Red Symons, of Hey Hey It’s Saturday fame.   Mark suggested we should introduce ourselves,  I wanted to, but was a little hesitant.  That was until I saw him (Red) pick up a stone and throw it into the canyon (he later said it was to get an idea of how deep it was – we weren’t technically right at the bottom), on seeing it I said “Mr Simons, you’re a vandal.”
He laughed, I introduced myself and we had a chat.  Nice guy!  Small world.

We’re back at the hotel now, having changed room to a suite that has two bedrooms, both with King sized beds to accomodate us, and our friends Alex and Randy.  We’re all sitting in the living room now.  I’m blogging, they’re playing Scrabble on Alex’s new iPad.

Very civilised.  Oh yes, civilised.  We have champagne, and amazing view out over Las Vegas from the 17th floor.

Sounds lavish, but when you do it as a group it’s totally affordable.   Oh, and I’ve gambled.  I lost $21.  I don’t even gamble, I hate it, but figured while in Vegas, why not.   Mark won the money I lost back, his machine was apparently much luckier.  We then cashed out.  So for gambling, overall we’re down $3.  Not such a bad effort.  Especially when you take into account that when using the ATM, the amounts it suggests are in $1000, $2000, $3000 etc denominations…

That’s it.  There’s nothing sordid, so on this occasion, what happened in Vegas is fit to be shared with all of you! 🙂

Start to Finish

Today was an insane day.

Not only is this post late, because I ran out of time to post, but I’mnow writing it in another state.

A state of exhaustion, and in Washington State as opposed to California.

We started the day early.  Early enough that we were literally the first people into the Disney Park, and the first people to ride on Space Mountain.  We also managed to become the first people to lose items on it.  Mark left his camera, and I left my water.
Luckily, we were also the first people to be reunited with our items.  We ran from the exit to the start of the ride to ride again, identified that the ride Controller had Mark’s camera (someone must have handed it in), and re-boarded.   Happy coincidences.  By fluke, we even managed to get exactly the same carriage as we’d had moments before (they run multiple carriages), and my water was still there.  Yay!

Anyway…  I’m exhausted right now so am going to cut this short.  We hit a stack of rides, then raced back to the hotel to finish the packing, and checkout by 11am, and move our bags into Alex and Randy’s room (thanks guys!), and returned to the park, where we stayed until close.   Ending the day the same way we started, riding Space Mountain.

By 11.30pm we’d said our goodbyes to Alex and Randy and had boarded our shuttle back to the L.A. airport, only to catch another shuttle to the hotel we had booked for our final evening.

We didn’t check in until 1.38am (Friday morning), had a hot shower, rechecked our bags to make sure they were packed properly, went to bed, only to be woken a little over 2 hours later to head to the airport…

But that’s for Friday.

Let the fun begin…

After nearly 5 long hours of driving we, and the Miller’s have all arrived safely in Spokane ready for a day of fun tomorrow at Idaho’s Silverwood Theme Park and Boulder Beach for a day of shenanigans for the big kids and little kids before the little kids all go back to school next week.

It should be a lot of fun, but for now the day is drawing to a close.  It was a loooooong drive, I’ve had a nice hot shower and made good use of the massage jets for my back, and I’m settled in on top of the bed about to watch a movie.

Oh, before I sign off.  We all went out for dinner tonight at a “Chinese” restaurant.  The food was ok, the servings were enormous, and most of the food didn’t get eaten, the highlight for me though…  The fortune cookie.

I got a good fortune.  A potentially “over 18” fortune…  *laugh*

Be prepared to receive something special in a large package

*clicks heels together*  Yay!

G’night!

Tuesday… again!

I’m home after a very long day spent primarily on planes, I’m finally home, fully unpacked, the first load of washing is going through as I type, plants have been watered, dogs played with, and now it’s time for a nice hot shower and collapse into my own bed.

It’s totally surreal to think that a little over 24 hours ago I was in Fiji.  Time flies…  So do I!

But I’m back, Immigration went relatively smoothly, the flight from Fiji to Los Angeles was pretty horrendous.  The plane lights kept going out, the entertainment system kept stopping, there was a Medical Emergency (not sure what happened) that had the Flight staff paging the plane to see if there were any Doctors or Nurses on board…

We survived though.  Bleary eyed and tired, but we survived.  The treat at the end though was upgrading ourselves (for $50 each) to First Class for our final 2.5 hour trip from Los Angeles to Seattle.

A nice big seat, nice food, great service, and drinks to go with it all.  I finally even managed to get a nap in.

The normal routine starts again tomorrow, commencing with collecting the kitties from the “Resort”.

Good night all! 🙂

Farewell Fiji nearly…

It’s our last day in Fiji today as we fly out this evening for Los Angeles, and then another flight back to Seattle.

No more sun, sand, surf, or cocktails in the pool.  Shame!

Before we go though, we’ll be going Horse Riding this morning, then having a final massage before heading back to the airport.

Oh, and the morning started super early, as I decided to get up and take some sunrise photos.  A whole 9 rolls of film worth.  It’ll be interesting to see them all when I finally have them processed.

Ok, time to go, have to pack, get sorted, and go ride a horsey!  Woohoo!

The Excitement Continues

We had an early start to the day today as we’d booked ourselves a Jetskiing adventure and Safari.

Adventure, and Safari it most definitely was, and we’re both exhausted.

I’ve found a new hobby, and discovered I’m a bit of a natural at navigating a Skidoo across the ocean at high speed, complete with hard bends etc.  I even managed to get air borne several times, and LOVED IT!

According to my GPS watch, we Jetskiid 48’ish kilometres in total.

From the main island, we travelled to a small island 18 km’s away where we stopped to snorkel for an hour, an experience which was like swimming through the movie Finding Nemo.  Every fish we saw in the film, we saw in real life today, along with amazing corals, Parrot Fish, and other fish I have no idea what the names of were, all I know is that the colours of fish, water and coral were amazing.  Just like a box of Derwents blew up under water.

After snorkelling we had lunch, I learnt how to husk a fresh coconut, a job that is markedly more difficult than our guide made it look.  Although he assures me that with practice it gets easier.  I did however persevere and finished what I started.

Then back on the Skidoo’s and off around the island, and across to another larger one, where all the sights were pointed out, then we hightailed it back to the start of our adventure.

Of course there were mini adventures all along the way…

Mark was much slower on the water than myself and our guide, which only made it more fun for me.  Periodically I’d look over my shoulder and see that he’d dropped back, so I’d slow down and allow him to catch up, then grin and take off again at full throttle.  So much fun.

Oh, and at one stage in the middle of the ocean we all turned our engines off for a bit to rest, before taking off again.  Everyone took off, except me.  My engine wouldn’t start, a situation that I can’t say I was overly impressed with, especially when I realised that Mark and our Guide hadn’t realised.  Although Mark finally realised and came back for me.  Just as he arrived my engine started, I opened the throttle to full, spun a huge high speed circle and took off after our guide, who later told me he thought I’d played a prank on Mark and enticed him back only to race off on him.  I explained it was a mechanical fault, and while I have the capacity to be that evil, I really wasn’t.  😉

Finally back, we showered, changed and returned to our resort, where right now, and even as I type this, my arms are protesting.  Every muscle I have is aching and protesting, and my forearms are cramping with simply typing this post.

Oh, one point of excitement and contention of our drive to the Jetski’s…

Along the road our driver slowed down and said “This is where the gunmen hide”.

My blood turned to ice, but I kept quiet.  I think the driver noticed the change in the atmosphere of the car, so explained.  The Police with their radar guns…

Phew! 

G’night all, I’m tuckered out! 🙂

*Photos will follow eventually when I get home.