Click on any of the pictures to make them larger!
My first flight was at noon. My daughter-in-law Betsy picked me up at my house around 9:30 and after a stop at the Post Office and the bank, we were off to the airport. We had heard that President Obama was flying into Cleveland today to talk up his outrageous budget plan (sorry about the political commentary! Ha-ha). Usually when this happens all air traffic and vehicle traffic stops anywhere near where he will be.
I got checked in and headed to the gate. At some point I could see several helicopters flying around the air space near the runways. I soon saw Airforce One in its landing pattern. It looked to be flying so slow that it might fall out of the sky.
Airforce One taxied its way back to near the IX center and parked. It was a little too far away to see anything clearly, but I did count 22 vehicles in the caravan to take the President to Cleveland State University.
I was using a Southwest Voucher I had earned to fly to Los Angeles. The first leg of the trip was a change-over in Chicago. Then on to Los Angeles. I had a three hour layover in LA before my flight to Melbourne, Australia. Chicago had suffered an ice storm earlier that day and all flights were delayed so I go to LA about an hour late, which was ok, because of the layover.
I met an interesting guy on the flight from Chicago to LA. “Javiar” worked in the Chicago Catholic Diocese as a youth minister for Hispanic youths. We talked the entire trip. He was very interested in my desire to join the Peace Corps and mission work.
All I can say about the flight to Melbourne was that it was “long”. 15 hours of flight time. I have trouble sleeping on planes and this flight was no exception. I thought it would never end. I did watch three movies and read some of the book that Alicia had given me before my trip. We were fed two meals and I got up as much as I could and did some laps around the inside of the plane.
I had a two hour layover in Melbourne before the final leg of my journey to Auckland, New Zealand.
Reg met me at the airport in Auckland. Reg’s daughter Larraine‘s partner Mike, helped Reg drive to Auckland and was also there to greet me.
Me arriving at the Auckland, NZ airport!
My host "Reg Thorne" picking me up at airport.
At this point I had been going about 40 hours and was very tired. I was able to keep awake the two hour trip to Rotorua where Reg lives. It was a beautiful drive with rolling hills and mountains in the background. Larraine had dinner for us when we got to Reg’s house. I was soon off to bed! But…. Before I went to bed I said “Let’s play golf tomorrow”!
No comments:
Post a Comment