Time to begin to catch up - Leaving on a Jet Plane

From photo a day

Let's see.

We left Australia March 25 - boarding V Australia in the late afternoon. Odd. We've always flown from Australia in the late morning. The difference meant two things practically. First, I could work for half a day. (Sometimes I do make crazy decisions.) Second, we arrived in LA much later (4:30 PM rather than about 7 AM). This ultimately determined where I decided to go to get my continuing education hours (Phoenix rather than Athens, GA.)

This was our first flight on V Australia. Bright, shiny new planes with bright shiny new employees. Everyone was very friendly and helpful...especially in the middle of the night when I determined that my glasses had fallen off my lap while I was sleeping. They came with their little pen lights and scanned the floor. Ultimately, determining that my glasses must have slid "quite some distance" and "maybe they would turn up when the lights came back on".

It was UNDOUBTEDLY this turn of events which led to me watching only one film. And, somehow, despite working repeatedly through the fantasy of how I was going to navigate for the next 2 days without any distance vision and find an optometrist in Phoenix, I managed to get a reasonable amount of sleep.

At breakfast I was served not only a warm meal but my specs. Yay! I was very pleased ...right up there with the relief I felt when we'd finished hiking through the Olgas (and Cradle Mountain) without falling down and breaking all the teeth in my head.

Kevin was generous and waited with me for several hours in LA before going home with his friend, Don. We ate and played Mystery Rummy and for the first time I skunked him.

I also called Phoenix to confirm my hotel reservation where I learned that the hotel was oversold and that when I arrived at 1 AM I was very likely going to have to jump back into a cab and find another "home". While inconvenient, it wasn't going to be AWFUL. They had already identified a "sister inn" that could take the overflow.

Once again I was lucky. When I arrived the receptionist was flummoxed having just been abused by the last car load of guests who learned they had no room at the inn. I had worked through this issue hours earlier and so was pleasant and accommodating. In the midst of our conversation she remembered that there was an available room. But, it was a "handicap suite"...which meant that it might be a little bigger. Well, damn. I guess that is OK.

I trundled off to my room, took a bath, and laid awake watching "Tough Love" on VH-1 until 4 AM.