In the words of Mark Twain, “And how slow and still the time did drag along.” For anyone who has not yet experienced the joy of flying from Australia to the US, the above words certainly do hold true. It is a long flight, with not a lot to do apart from read, watch movies, eat, sleep in 15 minute intervals. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. For 14 hours.
To be fair to Qantas, they did feed us with an acceptable lamb shank, chicken and leek pie, Weiss Lemon Myrtle and Yoghurt bars, breakfast frittata and pretzels and almonds. I also did watch; Danger Close, SpiderMan: Far Frome Home, some film about a bride being chased by her in-laws and something else which was obviously memorable.
Fast forward 14 hours to LAX, rapidly becoming one of my lesser favourite airports. Immigration = passport scan, fingerprint scan and photo. From here you get a printed card which you then take to a customs officer who then repeats the entire process! What was the point of the quick electronic entry??? From there we had to enter a cold and wet LA day and catch a transfer bus to the Hertz depot. Arrived at 8:00am. Lining up in the roped off area I was called by a man to go to counter 23. I did so and a large lady exclaimed loudly, “Pardon me but it’s customary here to queue until you are called.” “But I was called, by him.” pointing to the man about to sit down in counter 23. No apology, she just went on talking with another minion about whose mother makes the best turkey, sides, gravy etc. Hand over voucher, make polite conversation with minion in counter 23. Where are you headed? Vegas. Have you heard about the I - 15? No, just arrived. Oh, it might be snowed out. This was followed by; sorry, Thanksgiving holiday, we don’t have your car available. But I booked it 6 months ago. Yes, the system says that. We can offer you a minivan. No thanks, didn’t order a minivan. We can offer you a bigger one for the same price. Fine, give me the keys and I’ll take it. Walk through depot. Did I mention it was cold and wet? Find tank. Yes, apparently Chevrolet make a tank. After wondering whether it would be easier to mount a horse or this thing i realised that there was no way I was going to get Sue into it. Walk back to depot. Talk to minion. Explain situation about wife in wheelchair. Minion again offers minivan. Decline minivan again. Larger minion again attempts to make conversation, “Doesn’t daddy want the minivan?” I could have informed said minion about what daddy might want to do regarding her and nearest window but declined as it was Thanksgiving and Matthew was whispering for me to calm down. Minion offered a different car; a VW. Accepted new keys. Walked through depot. I’m sure I have mentioned it was cold and wet. Vehicle acceptable. Left 9:30am repeating mantra, “Drive on the right side, drive on the right side.”
Driving through LA was not as bad as I was expecting. There was little traffic, the roads were ok and I could deal with the rain. We left the city and turned north onto I - 15. Yes, there was snow...and traffic. The next hour we managed 17 miles. We stopped for lunch in Barstow and then proceeded further on, into snow. At least time we were managing about 40 mph. It was a long and slow drive into Vegas and I did pull over for a 30min nap. The others didn’t object as they were all sound asleep. Got to the Paris Hotel and Casino about 5:30pm and managed to grab a shower before heading down to catch up with my niece, Elselynn and her partner Leo. We shared a huge Thanksgiving dinner and then crashed by 9:30.