Back in the USA

Farewell dinner in Brisbane
Ret standing at back of cafe in hotel foyer checking her email with free Wi-Fi

First Night. Aunty Dympna & Tony in our hotel, The Orleans

Many of you will know that when Murray & I returned to the USA to do our 4th RV trip on 20 May this year (2 days ago), my younger sister and aunt accompanied us, and will spend the first 2 weeks of our trip touring in the motorhome with us. After a farewell dinner with family in Brisbane the night before we flew out, we excitedly boarded our Qantas 747 flight at 11am and completed the 13 hr direct flight to Los Angeles. Always very impressed with Qantas service in the past, we were a bit disappointed to note the little things that have dropped off the service like not issuing earplugs or socks in the eye shade and toothbrush pack. I had told my aunt & sister the first thing I do is take off my shoes & put on the Qantas socks to travel more comfortably. Oops. Not this time. The mini Cadbury chocolate was also missing from the overnight food packs. Sigh…the economic crunch is taking its toll. However, we were all thankful for a smooth flight and safe landing at 7am, despite each only catching a 20 min sleep during the whole flight.

During our successive encounters with LAX we have appreciated the continual improvements to the building, however this visit was quite a shock. Remember that we had our 86 year aunt with us, so the extra long & slow lines to get through the passport check, followed thankfully by a speedy customs check was one thing. But when we saw the daunting line of people waiting to pass through security for the flight to Las Vegas, we wondered if she would last the distance. I kid you not, the line snaked outside the terminal building. Even the locals were shaking their heads. My sister took my aunt to sit out the wait while Murray and I slowly made our way to the top of the line. My brother flies regularly to USA but in recent years has refused to travel through LAX due to similar experiences. He now flies into Hawaii or Vancouver. I think we might look at those options for subsequent trips. That aside, we were glad to finally get inside our departure gate and have a coffee and meal to revive our flagging bodies – but our spirits never faltered. Bring it on!

We had booked 3 nights at a large hotel , The Orleans, just off the strip hoping it would be a good opportunity to allow our bodies to adjust to the different time zone (USA is 17 hours behind Australia). The hotel provides a free shuttle into the strip every 30 minutes which makes life easy for hotel patrons. For $80 a night we scored 2 queen beds in each room, a roomy bathroom, and a small lounge suite in a large sized room. The hotel has about 8 restaurants, one is an Irish Pub, plus additional fast food shops in a 24 hr food court. There are also 18 cinemas in the hotel. Yes, it is a big place with just under 2000 rooms. On our first night my brother Tony & his wife Yudian joined us for dinner in our hotel. We selected a $13 dinner buffet which surpassed all our expectations. An unbelievable array of food was on offer, and between us we would have tried a small portion of most dishes! We all had to pinch ourselves to think that only 2 weekends earlier we had all been together in Sydney, and here we were in another country together. As it had been well over 24 hours since we had slept, we didn't hang around long after the meal was finished. We scuttled to our rooms and slept soundly on our first night.