The Big One

Early start this morning as we have a big day ahead of us.  Today is the big leg on our return journey and the one that Mrs M has not been looking forward to – 13 hours on a plane across the Pacific to Los Angeles, before an onward connection to San Francisco.  

We get our taxi ok to the airport and get checked in.  Then following Mr M’s rules of flying get something to eat to keep us going for the next few hours, in the Quantas business lounge.  

Time to go.  Nice big plane – a 747 – Mrs M’s favourite! Nice big comfy seat and of course a glass of fizzy on boarding – Mrs M soon gets settled in and is looked after by the Quantas crew as a passenger who has completed the BA Flying with Confidence course.

Up up and away eventually after an hours delay on the tarmac due to heating problem in the hold where two cats were being shipped.  Most people know that Mr M will sleep any place any way – sometimes on our flights he has been asleep even before takeoff, much to Mrs M’s mortification!  Not today however – in fact there is a role reversal and Mr M gets no sleep at, whereas Mrs M is out for the count!

Eventually we make it to an extremely foggy LA.  The flight was pretty smooth and not as bad as we had thought.  We make it through immigration and customs in record time – less than 1 hour which by all accounts is a record for Mr M, must be because Mrs M is travelling with him!

We collect our bags to recheck in for the next flight, but then make the discovery that our flight has been cancelled.  We get ‘waitlisted’ for the flight as Priority 1 and 2, but only Mr M would have made it onto the flight, as in there end there was only one spare seat and under no circumstances was he allowed to fly without Mrs M!

American transfer us onto a United flight leaving at 3pm (only 9 hours after our arrival in LA) and tell us not to worry as our bags have already gone on and will be there to meet us in San Francisco……..

Arrive in San Francisco at about 5pm and guess what – no bags there to meet us!  What followed was a fun couple of hours trying to establish where are bags were (still in LA) and who was going to get them to us – American said it was up to United and United that it was up to American!!!  We met lots of extremely 'helpful', 'friendly' baggage people during these couple of hours with some of the best customer service we have ever experienced – so much so that one kind gentlemen in asking why we were so upset about our bags being delayed (‘not lost’) was that we were obviously carrying something that posed a security risk – what a welcome!  It is obviously the ‘norm’ for bags to go missing here!

Eventually make it to the lovely B&B in time to head out for a quick bite to eat which cheers us up and then a proper sleep for the first time in 36 hours!

Mrs M