Day 1 Leaving Australia (Journalling by DH)

We arrived at Sydney without too much of a problem. We took a cab from Margery’s (Aunt) at NorthSydney and the driver engaged us all the way. He had recently been to the US and gave us some good oil.

We checked into the flight, the lady at the checkout counter asked us where we were going to stay, she said it was extremely important that the address in their system matched what we had put on the electronic pre-approval. I showed her and she started to type in Hotel TBA, I explained that TBA meant To Be Advised. I had however forgot to update it and wasn’t really sure where we were staying so I gave what I thought was right.

After going through customs we headed for the internet terminal to check out which hotel we had booked and where it was. Suffice to say I (Ian) was wrong and panic set in. We didn’t have any confirmation back from the Ramada at Barstow and I gave the address at the checkin counter as Ramada Inn Kingham. We were able to send off another booking to the Ramada at Barstow and then update our electronic entry authorisations. Then it was a matter of updating the QANTAS system. We headed for the QANTAS Club because I knew that if anyone was going to be able to help us and update their system they would. After searching around a few screens they were finally able to update our hotel information. Thank goodness, I am sure they would have finally let us into the US after a bit of mucking around but it was surely better to fix it before we got there.

Journalling by me:

We settled into the flight and started to watch movies. We both watched Grand Torino, I watched, Marley and Me, and The day the earth stood still,
The flight went reasonably quickly, I didn’t however enjoy the food much – Qantas is usually better.

Day 1 Ground Hog Day- We called it this as we actually arrived an hour earlier than when we left so we lived this day twice. DH named it ground hog day.

We arrived in Las Angeles four hours before we left Sydney at about 9:45am. We went through customs which took about an hour as they check passports, destination address and they take your fingerprints electronically.

It then took about half an hour to get to the Thrifty car rental and get the car which turned out to be a Dodge Avenger or something like that? It sounds like a sewing machine at high speed.

Drive to Barstow, California

We wanted to get at least out of LA and make it to Barstow which was about 3 hours drive. We decided to hire a Navman so it reasonably easy to navigate our way out of LA with all the highway flyovers. We passed the San Bernardino Mountains on our right and it was very smoggy – later heard that there were fires in Santa Barbara so maybe it was this.

I had to take a photo of this pic - Tassie Devil on the back of the truck.

We arrived at Barstow about 4.00 where we check into Ramada Inn. First we grabbed dinner at the Sizzlers restaurant next door even though we were more than ready to get some sleep. We weren’t sure about the tipping process, ie do you leave the tip on the table, give it to the waitress or put it in a tip jar on exit. We decided to leave it on the table.
After dinner went back to our room and crashed. The problem was it was too early really and we were both awake by 1.00am and couldn’t go back to sleep. It didn’t help that every train that went throught Barstow honked it horn numerous times just to wake everybody up.

As the states was built around the railway line we found out that every town along this route would be the same. Anyway all very frustrating as I still felt tired but just couldn’t get back to sleep. We managed to get back to sleep about 4.00am.