Well, it was a hard-earned accomplishment, but Brian and I successfully made it to the US—fifty-seven hours after leaving home.
We headed off on our adventure last week early Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, heavy fog in Auckland meant delays, delays and finally cancellation of our flight. With no chance of catching our afternoon flight to Los Angeles, we began to explore rebooking options. Perhaps more unfortunate than our cancelled flight, we were told that the next available flight at the same fare would be June 1st, eight days away. Having rented out our house and packed the bare minimum for our trip, eight days would be a bit of a stretch. Not to mention the weekend of racing we had planned.
Putting to use profits from months of selling cookies, we opted to upgrade our fare and obtained a flight scheduled for the very next day. Not wanting to risk a repeat of the foggy morning, we got on the next available flight to Auckland (via Christchurch!) and made use of the excellent opportunity to catch-up with an Auckland-based friend for dinner and an overnight stay (Thank you Gayle!).
The following day, fog-free, our travels to LA went smoothly. We even caught up with Brian's friend Peter whom Brian had not seen in 15 years. The original plan had been to spend our eight-hour layover touring Paramount Studios where Peter works. Our flight change gave us a shorter layover of four hours, a day later than planned, but Peter was still able to meet us at the airport, and, taking advantage of the quiet early morning traffic, we enjoyed a lovely breakfast at Venice Beach. (Thank you Peter!).
Back at the airport for our late morning flight, we waited further delays as thunderstorms hammered Chicago, our final destination. Fortunately the delay was only a few hours this time and we were soon back in the sky. We landed in Chicago Wednesday evening in moderate rain and chilly but pleasant temperatures—not too dissimilar from the weather we had left in New Zealand. An hour's drive further and we made it. A wee snack and then straight to bed exhausted!
Having missed out already on one day of preparations, we busied ourselves on our first day in the US with organising our bicycles for the racing ahead (and for me finishing up a report for work). We unpacked and then repacked (and I stayed up all night writing) and, the next morning, headed off for more travelling, this time in the car. We drove four hours southwest to the Quad Cities, on the border of Illinois and Iowa, for our first weekend of racing.
