Starting Out

Well, we're finally on our way. After walking the dogs 1st thing, and last minute packing, watched by one very disconsolate dog (Murphy) and one totally oblivious one (Jumbo) who was more interested in unpacking my suitcase and I matching pairs of socks, we made it out the door trying to ignore the accusing look on Murphys face.

We made it 3 miles down the road when I took inventory and realized I'd left my wallet behind! Promising start, but at least I discovered it before getting all the way to the airport.

Easy drive and flight but no bags appeared in LOs Angeles. Thankfully it was because they had posted the wrong carousel and the bags were sent to another carousel and then off-loaded and put in storage. All this brought back memories of a bag that went astray for 4 days in Italy before finally catching up with us the day we left. But with bags in tow we now had 11 hours to kill until our flight to Hong Kong.

We did have plans to have dinner with Brett's former racing manager and good friend, rod Campbell and his wife, Sandra, so we spent a happy few hours catching up with them over a good dinner at The Charthouse in Marina Del Rey.

Then it was back to the airport to check in and stand in the very long line at Security. I'd never realized how many flights left late at night for parts west - China, Australia, Fiji, Japan, etc. but we made it through and now await our flight scheduled to leave in just over an hour. Then it's 20 hours of flying to Hong Kong, including a 3 hour layover in Tokyo. Sounds like fun!