East to West

The trip began on 5th April when I traveled the 250 km to my brother's place in Sydney to stay overnight. We took my Station Wagon to the airport departures and he then took it back to his place.
The 3 hours I had before my flight went by a lot quicker than expected. Once you go through customs and immigration, there is seemingly an endless amount of duty free shopping available. Buy or not, it is an experience to behold to realise how much Tax and Excise we must be paying day to day!
My first segment took me to San Francisco; a 13 hr flight. Flying toward the east means you fly against time (with the rotation of the earth) and therefore when leaving in the afternoon, it doesn't take long before you are into the dark of night. Once upon a time, they used to advise you to set your watch to the local time of your next destination. They didn't do that, but I had decided to leave it at Sydney time anyway. At 3am Sydney time (and my body clock) it was daylight again. At around 4am we were landing in San Francisco. Now I decided to change my watch to local time which was 11 am Monday. Wait a minute! My god, I only arrived at Sydney airport at 11 am Monday and now it's just ticked over 11 am again! I know, I know. As much as one can understand why it is so, it is different to feel it with the body and the mind.
I managed a whole hour of sleep on that leg but got to see 4 recently released movies and 3 x 30 min episodes of TV shows.
You know you must be getting old when you can think back to your first inter-city or International flight and remember that ALL males had to wear a coat and tie!!! Mmmm. That's the truth. I flew from Sydney to Auckland in 1961 with my father and it was a condition of travel. That was when Turbo-Prop Lockheed Electra aircraft were used for those 4 hr flights. In 1976 I flew to Christchurch NZ in a 747 and the dress code was relaxed. Then in 1997 I remember flying across the pacific to Canada via USA and there were males on the plane wearing board shorts, singlets and bare feet! (Not to mention the B.O. wafting from their armpits!)
Getting back to this trip, I had two segments left. 5 -1/4 hrs to Washington DC and after another 2 hr changeover, onward to Buffalo NY in a much smaller jet taking an hour. I only took this route because it saved me more than $1300 for a normal direct route all the way to Toronto. More than 50% cheaper!
There was a downside; arriving in Buffalo airport at 11 pm. I would need to be at the Bus Terminal in downtown Buffalo at around 6:15 am. It was much safer and warmer to wait at the Airport and get a cab at 6am. It was too uncomfortable to sleep on the type of seating they have there. I met a young lady at around 2 am and we chatted all through the night and had breakfast together and so that passed the time quite pleasantly. There were (almost out of season) snow storms in the Great Lakes area. Many flights had been canceled from different airports. She had to wait until 11 am for her flight. I've since learned that Meaford recorded the largest snowfall in all of Canada that day.
I caught a Greyhound Bus to Burlington in Ontario (2 hrs incl Border inspection) where I was met by my sister-in-law. There was a hitch with the bus schedule as it was different to what was issued on the Internet. The driver was very co-operative and made two out-of-the-way stops for me. One to get a different ticket and another to divert from the freeway into Burlington City Transit Center where I'd be picked up. I had emailed a "copy" of the bus schedule directly from the internet to my sis-in-law a couple of weeks before.

Megan arrived at their place at midday. She'd been delayed because a snow drift had piled up against her front door, and she had to dig the car out. Generally the driving was pretty slow for what is normally about the same trip as Crookwell to Sydney.The snow storm that delayed Megan meeting me.

An afternoon nap was in order as it was now virtually 47 hours since I'd slept. After dinner it was to be an early night for bed................

It was exciting to be together again after nearly eight months apart. It was also exciting to be back here and meeting up with all of Megan's large clan that I haven't seen for 11 years.