Welcome To Los Angeles

That is what this gentleman’s sign says, in English and I presume what it says in Chinese. We arrived this afternoon and are waiting to meet our daughter who took a later flight from a different airport. At the point of taking this photograph, I have been mostly awake for 41 hours. Travel is not for the faint of heart. 

The travel saga started Sunday morning (feel free to ignore the next few paragraphs, they are here to jog my memory in the years to come). 

We spent the day seeing some final sights in Heraklion, before returning to our room. On our arrival at the hotel, I discovered that we were supposed to have checked out that morning, but I had thought we had it until the next day. Nothing a lot of apologizing and a bankcard couldn’t fix. That allowed us to spend time in the room getting organized for our departure and the opportunity for a nap but we were too excited at the prospect of traveling.

Our flight was delayed by 25 minutes, which meant we technically didn’t leave Greece until Monday morning, about ten minutes after midnight. Flew to Gatwick Airport arriving just before 2:00 am. I managed to purchase transfer tickets on the 5:25 bus to Heathrow, so we had plenty of time to get a quick snack (and try to warm up, very cold in England after a week in Greece). Our Virgin flight left on time and I managed to watch five movies during the 10 1/2 hours on board (and eat numerous meals, seemed like they were always feeding us). 

I thought we could easily pick up a rental car, after all tourist season is over, but at our preferred choice they were all sold out. Orbitz to the rescue. I figured I could walk to the new place and so took off down the street. When I arrived at the new location, the line was out the door with people waiting. I was not that patient, plus I knew we were picking our daughter up in a couple of hours, so I went on by to the next place where I was number two in line. 


A two and half hour drive south to San Diego brought us to our final destination, our home for the next week as we help our daughter transition to life in the United States after a year abroad. Bed never felt so good. We figured 47 hours of total awake time, with only a couple of short naps on planes or buses.