The Joys of Air Travel

What a travel day (actually 2 days).  The three of us along with our 8 pieces of luggage and 3 carry on bags and 3 personal items were picked up at our home in Alpharetta.  The driver was about 20 minutes late as there was a tractor trailer accident on the highway (Interstate 400).  Since that particular highway is the quickest way to the airport we had to find an alternative route.  The trip to the airport usually takes about 40 minutes but on Friday it took 2 hours!  Fortunately our flight was not for several hours so we were ok.  We got through our baggage check in (an additional $225 due to the weight of 3 of our bags) and security and enjoyed the Delta Sky Club.  Our flight was due to leave at 5:45pm so we made our way to the gate around 4:45pm to find out that our flight was delayed until 7:00pm due to the lack of a first officer.  They really had no idea what time a replacement would show up...but that did not stop them from boarding us on the plan at 6:30pm.  Once everyone was boarded they informed us that they did not know what time were were leaving.  Why would they put us on a plane to tell us they did not know what time we were leaving?  Anyways about 20 minutes later, we had a first officer!  Now it was about 7:30pm.  Our connection to Melbourne was scheduled to leave LA at 11:30pm (pacific time) so we were still ok and then the thunderstorms started!  So we sat on the plane for about 40 minutes while a severe thunderstorm took place.  We were finally cleared to take off around 8:30pm.  We arrived in LA and had to walk to another terminal, well run as we needed to check in 90 minutes before our flight and it was very close to 10pm.  We finally got to the terminal and were told that they closed down check in due to the weight in the plane. What??? They offered to re-route us through Sydney and then connect us to Melbourne. I said no, we would wait and see if we could check in.  About 10 minutes later they said we could check in.  We boarded the plane and were in the back of the Airbus 380.  What a nice aircraft, 2 floors (yes were were on the bottom level at the back in the cheap seats). It was a long flight but not terrible.  The crew was very nice and the food was decent.  We arrived in Melbourne at 9:15am.  We went through immigrations and off to get our luggage when we heard Rich's name being paged to report to the oversize luggage department to be told that 4 pieces of our luggage did not make it to Melbourne.  We went to pick up the remainder of our bags to find out that 2 of the bags were my things!  We went through customs and got in a cab to our temporary apartment.  We did some shopping and I cooked dinner and we were all in bed by 7:00pm.  It's good to be here safely, even if I don't have any clothes to wear!  Here are some pictures Nicole took out of the window of the plane as we were coming into Melbourne.