STAGE 1

HERVEY BAY to OMAHA

It was stinking hot, everything packed and we had nowhere near 44lbs in each suitcase. Jason took us to the airport, where we said our good-byes. It was kind of sad to leave him at home BUT we got on the pokey little plane at 11am for our trip to Brisbane, where we connected on another plane, some 2 hours after landing, and headed for Sydney. YIPPEE! We were on our way out of here for nearly 2 months.

We boarded in Sydney at 7pm and I was horrified... ahat a let down! We were packed like sardines and the plane was full. Then we were told the plane had 'flap' trouble and would be delayed until it was fixed. "good start" I thought. (NOT!)

45 minutes later we headed down the runway and I prayed that we'd be safe. By the time they served dinner Jared was asleep, so he missed out. We woke up in the morning to a disgusting Australian version of a "Basic Instinct" movie being shown. I couldn't believe my eyes.... Yes, QANTAS got a letter from me! Haven't received a reply yet.

LA was another disaster.... took 2 hours to get through Immigration, however the hotel (Hilton) was wonderful. Now, Jared has been to nice hotels here in Australia, BUT his eyes popped out of his head as we entered the foyer and his mouth gaped open.... "Is this Royal?" he said.

You can see by the photo why he was impressed *S* and the photo doesn't do it justice.

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16th December 2000

After a restful night and a quick breakfast. we left the hotel 1 1/2 hours early to catch the plane to Omaha...big mistake!! We should have stayed at the airport all night. Three shuttles and 3 goof-ups... we missed the flight!! This is one of the times I could have done with a man around. Three times I had to load and unload all of our suitcases and carry-on luggage on and off the shuttles. My back was about broken. These shuttle drivers didn't touch the luggage!! When I saw the humongous crowd waiting to be attended to at American Airlines I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

One of the airport staff, an African American, saw my reaction and came to assist. I told him our predicament and he suggested we upgrade to business class since there was no-one waiting in that line. At this point I didn't care if it cost more, I just wanted on a plane... any plane!. Well, as it happened, we didn't have to upgrade, the ticketing clerk got us on another flight BUT it was leaving in 15 minutes!! She organised a wheelchair to meet us at Dallas to transfer Mum to the gate for the connecting flight to Omaha. It took us half an hour to get from the arrival gate to the departure gate for Omaha!!

About an hour from Omaha Jared freaked.... snow lay everywhere down below. It was freeeeeeeeezing when we arrived accompanied by an icy wind. Everything was white, looked beautiful, but it was deathly cold. Checked with reception to see if my friend had arrived, but she had to cancel since they lived some distance from Omaha and were snowbound. So, we made the best of it. The Bellman, Rufus, was just wonderful. He organised for us to be driven into town so we could buy warm clothes for Jared and for us to be picked up when we were finished shopping.

Jared, as you can see, had a wonderful time romping around in the snow for the first time in his life. But he couldn't understand how it all got there. How do you explain snowflakes falling from heaven to an 8 year old?

After breakfast the next day, Rufus suggested we phone and confirm our bookings for our flight the following day. I did just that but the girl I was talking to seemed to be in a bit of a quandry. So I suggested it might be better if I went to the Airport if there was a hitch. Rufus of course drove us there and was there to take us back to the hotel. I was beginning to wonder if we should be on this 'holiday' at all. We were meeting disaster after disaster!

ALL OUR FLIGHTS within the United States had been deleted!!! It turned out that the woman in LA who booked us onto the other flight had inadvertantly canned the rest of our trip! So, since it was American Airlines who had created the disaster it was up to them to fix it. An hour later all our flights were recovered. Thank God Rufus had suggested we do the confirmation the day before otherwise we would have missed the flight to Orlando the next day.

Well, we were ready to leave the next morning and Jared found out how the snow fell from the sky... a snow storm!! The hotel wouldn't allow the shuttle to be used, so we got a taxi and were lucky to get one at all. Our flight had been cancelled because of the weather!! But, luckily we were transferred to a later flight even though we had about 1 hour or so to wait at the airport. We were supposed to go via Chicago, but Chicago was closed!! So we got a flight to Orlando via Dallas, again.

At least we got on the planes ahead of the other passengers, because Mum was in a wheelchair. We played that to death every time we flew. There was no way she could make it from one gate to the next at Dallas without assistance and because she got on the 'airport shuttle trains' so did Jared and I.

18th December 2000

We finally arrived in Orlando about 6pm. It had taken ALL day..

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