This is our trip traveling to Sale, Australia. Look at the size of Australia and we were just at a small area of it for sure.

image from ontheworldmap.com 

       Good morning, and it is warm out as it was during the night.  61 degrees at 8:00 AM.  But this will change as tomorrow the high will be in he 40’s.  You can see we are going to get a cold front.  With this cold front, there is going to be rain.  Some of the weather could be severe with hail, wind and tornados.  Hope we all just get the rain.  Stay safe all. 

I am working on pictures and our trip to Australia. I am writing up the trip in story form.  I found this interesting map of Australia. We flew into Sydney and then to Melbourne.  Evelyn and Tom picked us up and then drove to Sale which is like driving from MPLS.  We were up a total of 35 hours from the time we left Dougherty to the time we got to their home.  We were tired, but the jet lag didn’t seem that hard. 

When we got into LAX airport our gate, we came from was 33 and our international flight was gate 34.  Just next gate over.  I thought this is easy Pease. We were on all the flights early so had plenty of time to get ready to board.   The flights out they asked for military people and for the international flight as for retired military people. Larry and I took advantage of boarding early.  Thank you for your service was given.  We flew Delta from Mpls/St Paul to Sydney Aust. 

In Sydney we had to get passports approved.  That line was like pushing cattle through a small area.  It was all done electronically.  We had to find our luggage and take it through customs again. That went well.  We walked to another area to check in to the domestic flight to Melbourne.  We loaded a bus to take us from the international airport to the domestic flight.  Two different airports and quite a distance to get there.  When we got off the bus, I had help to get to get through customs again to board to get to Melbourne.  Again, we went ahead of the line and that went well.  We were instructed to go to the main floor of the Sydney domestic airport and there was a cart waiting for us to take us to the gate.  I always ask names and this driver was “George”.  He was from Greece and has lived there for 18 years.  George got us to our gate.  While waiting, I noticed that the board changed that wasn’t our gate.  I asked and we had to move to another gate to load up.  Now George came and found us to make sure we made the correct gate.  We found the airport staff very helpful for this couple from rural Iowa USA that haven’t traveled in an airplane for 28 years.  That was me as Larry traveled for the Seabees but that was the military that lined up his trip tickets.

      We got into the air for Melbourne, and it was a quick flight.  No time even for a drink as we had to make up time.  We left later than scheduled and we landed at a different gate.  Evelyn was at the airport, and she had to find out where we were.  She found us and off we went to get the luggage and start the next leg of the trip.  Tom was parked outside of the airport to pick us up.  We found him as he came back into the pickup area and off, we went to Sale, Victoria Aust.
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     As this time, both of us were just dazed and overwhelmed with the size of the airports, the miles traveled and not knowing what to do.  I am sure we looked confused and tired, but we made it.  I wanted to write while we were on the trip, but again, I didn’t want a lot to know we were gone.  This started our month-long visit to Evelyn and Tom McAdam, Larry’s sister.  We traveled the long flight of 9000 miles from LAX to Sydney.  We left Sept 8th and got there Sept 10th.  We left fall here and it was spring there.  It was a great visit, and we had wonderful hosts in Evelyn and Tom.  Not enough thank you will be said about it all.  I will write more about our trip in future posts. 
Till next time, this is Becky Litterer, Becky’s Greenhouse, Dougherty Iowa [email protected]  641-794-3337   cell 641-903-9365