March 26: The Journey Begins

I am writing this somewhere over the Pacific Ocean a third of the way to Australia. It is 8:22 in the morning. What a day of travel we have had yesterday and very early this morning! A serious bad weather front delayed our flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles for almost two hours. We had a 2 hour layover in Los Angeles, so we originally thought that we had nothing to worry about. The storm caused our pilot to fly around various storm cells, so the end result was we were 30 minutes late to the Los Angelos airport for our connection. Doug was fearful that we would miss our flight, but I was aware that there were several other people on our flight who were headed to Sydney; I felt that Delta would delay their flight to Sydney. I was right. When we arrived at the airport at 1:30 this morning Atlanta time, 10:30 pm LA time, the plane was waiting for us at the gate directly opposite our arrival gate and 18 weary passengers were welcomed (albeit a little grudgingly) aboard Flight 687. We settled into our seats and Patrise immediately crashed. It was after all, after 2 o'clock in the morning in Atlanta. Doug introduced himself to the gentleman sitting next to him and began a conversation for the next 2 hours. What is the probability that he is sitting next to another Doug who also happens to be an engineer traveling to Sydney for business ��. You can't make this stuff up! Doug Ward from Lexington, KY meet Doug Hooker from Atlanta, GA. We still have 7 more hours before we get to Sydney. When we arrive, we would have crossed the international date line and it will be in the morning of March 29th. We are looking forward to checking in at our hotel and recovering from our flight.

Patrise