Hello USA!!!

Touch down. Not much to be said about a 13hr flight to LA. We left about 90 mins late but leadfoot pilot got us there only 30 mins late. By shear miracle I had one of the only spare seats next to me, so the young guy in the aisle and I certainly enjoyed stretching out a little. Not that I managed to get much sleep.

Had brekky at 10.30pm Oz time and touched down at right on midnight Oz time, 7am local time.

By the time I cleared customs, collected my bags, rechecked my bags, cleared security, went through many passport/boarding checkpoints, freshened up and found my boarding gate, I only had about half an hour to kill.

My 2nd flight from LA to Dallas was terrific! Small plane, quiet, no meal interruptions, and I think I slept most of the 3 or so hours. Felt much better after being awake almost 24 hrs!

I negotiated my way out of the airport easily, jumped straight in a taxi to my host's house around 3.30pm. Andrea is lovely! A single divorced mum, she lets out her son's rooms when the kids are at dad's.

When I told her my plan to head into the Stockyards at Fortworth for the rodeo tonight, she offered to drive me, how sweet! So a quick freshen up and we were off around 4pm. Figured I should keep moving... and there was an afternoon cowboy show a 4.30pm that I wanted to catch if time allowed...besides, if I had stopped I probably would have passed out! So I made it just in time for the cowboy show although shouldn't have bothered, and then had some spare time to wander around Fortworth - aka cow town, or as I like to call it, cowboy town! I grabbed some dinner. No wait...lunch? I don't know where I'm at...anyway...at a little cafe, a toasted cheese sanga and it was pretty good!

Spent a few hours wandering the Stockyards which is only a few blocks then into the arena for the rodeo at 8pm. It was packed!

It was pretty awesome! I like the bucking horses the best. Unfortunately it all caught up with me and I started nodding off during the last few events. I high tailed it out after the last event and straight into a taxi home, and got back around 10.15pm.

Just crawled into bed now, first chance I've had WiFi access!! So tired!

The best bit is I ticked a few things off tomorrow's itinerary, so I think a nice long sleep to get over jet lag is in order...any excuse for a sleep in!

Later...