Vacations are strange beasts. They are essentially a means of escape for us humans, consumed daily with the tasks and pressures of modern, industrialized life, yearning to unplug and run away from everything, if only for a few fleeting moments. Taking holidays is the closest that mature adults come to running away from responsibility without actually doing so, all under the pretense of, “having a good time”, when “getting away from it all” is more the case than anything.

As such, coming back from an extended time away is always a bear, but it is even moreso when it involves a trip halfway across the world. I think I have mostly recovered from my jetlag and the spinning of brain as it tries to reorient itself on the world of the HereAndNow, so I can write this final chapter in our trip to Australia.

Brace yerself, Effie — she’s a long one.

Short Hops, Matrimony Doings, and Redhaired Angels

Our trip back really started when we decided that, instead of riding a bus for 6 hours from Whyalla to Adelaide, we would ship 2 bags of our luggage on the bus as freight and take 2 with us on a flight on Regional Express, which would involve a scant 35 minutes in the air instead of a quarter of a day in a hot vehicle with a bunch of potential nutters.

The check-in for REX was smooth enough, although we were 6kg overweight and had to pay A$18 extra to put our bags on — nothing, really. We boarded and got up into the air and were having a completely lovely flight over the ocean — smooth, no bumps — if you couldn’t hear the engines, you’d never know you were 14,000 feet in the air. In fact, I was going to state that I had about the best flight ever on a small plane when the descent into Adelaide started and things got much, much more interesting.

Apparently, there was a crosswind going parallel to the shore, so the pilot couldn’t come straight in, but had to make a wide curve down the coast by Glenelg and then sharply bank back to get back to the airport. This resulted in the plane dipping down from 14K feet at an angle that makes you wonder if you actually boarded Space Mountain instead of a passenger flight. Ontop of that, the turbulence from the shore winds increased — so we were bumping, stomachs in our necks, diving towards a dark blue body of water, and then banking sharply (while still in this dive), to try to get back to the airport. I was sure I could see the little man in the back of my brain rifling through the stacks of videotape, ready to load the projector in case this was the final moments, so he could play back The Best of Things Encountered in 29 Years.

Fortunately, the ride came to a good stop ontop of a long piece of concrete at the Adelaide airport, where we were met by Mel and her cute-as-a-button 18 month old girl, Lara. This kid is like sunlight dancing on the waters of a happy ocean. She is curly and cute and spunky and completely adorable. If the ultra-saccharine-laced cherubs peering up from the front covers of Hallmark cards had names, they’d be, “Lara”. I had a ton of fun hanging out and playing with her during our short stint there.

We got back to Mel’s house (whom she shares with her hubby, Dale) and got settled in and then made some tea and generally relaxed.

Bless her heart, Mel braved traffic and hassle and took us into Adelaide to a few of the local sights, namely Tea Tree Mall, Rundle Mall, the Central Markets, and the University to try to catch the museum before it closed. Alas, we were unable to do so, but we had a look around at the architecture and the people. There was a really cool digeridoo player in the centre of the street, playing 5 different digis at once in a sort of trance-and-dance style. It was very groovy. We saw amazing amounts of fresh veggies, fruits, meats, nuts, olives, candy, and tons of souveniers and other things in the Central Markets. I was ever so annoyed that I couldn’t take any of it back with me, given the amounts of lovely meats and cheeses that I wanted to try.

Wedding Bells are Ringing in My Head

Our time was soon taken up by helping my brother-in-law, Matt, get ready for his wedding. I went and helped set up before and get the decorations configured and then did the wedding rehearsal, and then helped out a lot before the wedding itself and during pictures and after. The wedding was very nice with a outdoors ceremony and an indoors reception. I ended up giving a speech and I think I pulled it off rather well, if I must say so myself. We had some marvelous food — oysters three ways, grilled sea perch, and crispy berry baskets for dessert. I had never had oysters before, at least, not on-the-half-shell, and they were….interesting. The kilpatrick ones were by far the best (bacon, cheese, and wirchestershire sauce on them and then broiled); the “thai infused” and natural ones tasted like the sea smells — kinda like seaweed and salt. It wasn’t one of my most favorite flavors to experience, but was interesting nonetheless.

The beer, a nice pale ale, flowed very generously down my neck as well. We did a little bit of dancing, but not much, as it wasn’t that sort of wedding. I made good friends with one of the bridesmaids who was pretty fun, but there weren’t a lot of people I knew there otherwise (other than my family). We did leave after a time, said our final goodbyes to Mum, Sam, Shayne, and Peter and then got dropped off to Mel’s by Danja and Conrad.

One Last Chance to Say Goodbye

The next day, Mel and Lara took us to Victor Harbor, which is down the coast to the south and east. We first went to a fauna park where we got up-close-and-personal with some of Australia’s incredibly varied and strange wildlife. I had a parrot on my finger, shoulder, and head; I got to take pictures of wombats sleeping (my favorite!); I saw a great many snakes, lizards, crocs, and similar; I got to feed the kangaroos and pet them (will post pictures of these soon); and I got to pet the koalas (who aren’t as soft as you’d imagine, but are still pretty cute and terribly languid). It was a great park and well worth the A$10 or so it cost to get in.

Victor is well-known for its penguin population that comes home to roost on Granite Island each night. We did not, as such, see any penguins due to the fact that you have to be there at dusk and after and on a special tour, but we had a great time nonetheless. We got some KFC as we were desperately hungry and ate by the sea, then we went on a bit of a walk and canter about since Lara was tired of sitting in her stroller. We then walked the bridge over to Granite Island and checked out the breakwater where the large waves were crashing against the gigantic rocks. It was one of those “pre-storm” sorts of winds blowing, kicking up spray in semi-aggressive fashions, making you think that disaster is looming in the distance but hasn’t quite gotten here yet. I loved it — I could have sat on those rocks and just felt the emotion of despair wash over me for a long time.

We returned to the mainland and prepared to leave, but on the way caught some incredible sunset pictures as the sky was emblazoned in these amazing displays of natural artwork. Mel took the “scenic route” out of Victor so we could get as many scenery photos as possible — we got some really incredible shots that will very possibly make it up onto our walls.

It was a bittersweet time for me, leaving Victor, as I knew it’d be the last of my exposure to the ocean for a long time to come. I do very much love the water, the shore, the seagulls, the view…so much of it bodes of serenity and calm and fierceness and the unknown; I’d be very much a beach bum if we lived anywhere near it in Australia. I tried to catch as many glimpses as I could as we drove out…

The Trek Back Through Wilderness

The rest of the night was spent packing and rearranging said effort. The problem was thus: We had too much weight in our luggage for the Virgin Blue flight. They only allow 1 bag and 20kg per person, and we each would be carrying 2 bags of around 15 to 20kg apiece. My mission was to try to play the game with their Overweight Luggage Pricing Scheme and see if I couldn’t get them to be lenient enough with the charge — we were fearing upwards of A$250 just to get our luggage on the plane.

I spent a long, long time with the bags and our stuff and a bathroom scale, constantly shifting things back and forth, weighing, then shifting them again, re-weighing, etc. I eventually ended up putting many of the dense objects (children’s books, magazines, etc) in my carryon bag (since they never check that anyway) and got our bags to 20kg, 20kg, 15kg, and 16kg.

The next morning we arose and said our goodbyes to Dale and then Mel and Lara took us to the airport. My packing and shifting had worked in our favor — the lady said we should be charged A$80, but only charged us A$50, which we most happily paid. We were running a bit behind, though, so right after we got checked in we had to say goodbye, get hugs and wet kisses from Lara, and head through security.

I got stopped for a random check of my carryon luggage by this terribly nice and friendly security lady. She asked about where I was from and was most amused that I already had my liquids in their little quart bag; she noted that Australia would start the same sort of nonsense the next month. We got to our gate, bought a water, and got on the plane a bit late in different rows because of our late checkin.

The flight was nice; I really can’t complain about it, and the plane (a 737-300) was much nicer than the previous Virgin Blue flight I had taken 3 years ago. They served drinks and snacks, which you had to buy, and during this the stewardess came up and said, “Hi. Your wife wants money.” with a big grin on her face. I laughed and asked for my carryon, which she happily got for me, got out a 50 and handed it to her, telling her to tell my wife I loved her. They were terribly amused by it all. I ended up getting a Sprite for my trouble. The stewardesses were really friendly and happy — must have been the day for it.

We got to SYD and disembarked, got our luggage off the carousel, and then headed for the trains to transfer to T1, which I had never taken before, but the signs they had seemed encouraging. It cost us all of A$9 for the two of us, I think, and we rolled our bags all the way to the train, got on, rode to T1, and then worked our way via a series of lifts to the ticketing level of the T1 terminal.

We got in line and got checked in by a very nice woman who tagged our bags all the way through to Minneapolis. Little did I know at the time, but she tagged my bags wrong — I had flown America West from MSP->PHX->LAX on the way over, but was flying Frontier from LAX->DEN->MSP. She ended up tagging them with the Frontier flight number but the America West code — DOH. This wouldn’t bite me till Recheck in LAX, however.

We got through security and then decided to find some food, something we both desperately needed. So we grabbed a couple of over-priced personal pizzas and some drinks from a vendor, snarfed those down with the gusto of a starved, rabid lion on the Serengeti, and then headed for our gate.

What surprised us is that we had to go through yet another security checkpoint; this one where they patted us down and searched our bags — very strange. Makes me wonder if the US has suddenly gotten all huffy about passengers on US-bound flights and are making them double-check everyone. Very annoying at that point, really, as it was a pretty small area around the gates.

Our plane was the typical 747-400 Longreach, but we got one with the Aboriginal markings all over it, which was pretty cool at first — it turns out that the painted ones are the older models, which means they have certain — oddities. For instance, our entertainment system went on the blink about an hour into the flight and we lost all ability to start/stop movies on demand, something that really cut down on my movie-watching.

The flight was pretty standard — long and boring. We got almost zero sleep thanks to a couple of drunken assholes that sat in front of us plowing down bottles of wine as fast as they could. They were talking loudly over the noise of the plane — now, if you’ve never been on a BIG plane, they’re quite noisy at cruise. One does not talk over them — you lean towards the other person so they can hear. But these chaps were talking OVER the noise, which resulted in nobody getting sleep around them until one woman ahead of them finally gave them a piece of her mind. Then they passed out and wouldnt’ wake up, even when meal service came.

The meals were ok; the service was all right but not brilliant. It just went on a long, long time in general.

Stateside and Standing Upright — We Think

Upon landing in LAX, we got mostly up to the gate but then they said they had to get a tractor to pull u the rest of the way in, as we were too close for engines. But there was a delay, which the pilot finally came on the radio to say that an Airbus A380 (the largest plane in the world, not yet in active service) had just landed and it’d be a bit to get someone to help us out. Opening the window revealed every single vehicle on the entire tarmack racing off to the far side — it was incredible to watch! Guys pouring out of every door, jumping in trucks and tractors, and whizzing out of sight.

Unfortunately, we never did get to see it — it was on the wrong side of the airport. But Yolanda did, the lucky tart — she saw it from her plane that left LAX an hour after mine. Lucky duck.

Got through immigration just by flashing my passport and Yolanda’s greencard — never did ask for her passport or anything, which was really sweet. Got our bags, made it through customs without a hassle, and then on to recheck. As I said above, the very nice but not very observant woman did my tags wrong, so while we pushed Landa’s through recheck, we had to haul mine one terminal down to get checked in with Frontier.

We made our way back to Tom Bradley, got our money changed over, pulled some more cash out of an ATM, and got some food — I got a burger from the World’s Slowest McDonald’s and Yolanda got some Chinese food. Not only were the employees moving at the speed of butter in Siberia, but they were trying to serve the entire Chilean soccer team. It took….awhile.

We ate, I changed my underwear to a clean pair for comfort’s sake, and we rested for awhile. We eventually made our way to the bus, we went and got Yolanda checked in, gave her a kiss, and let her go into security as I jumped back on the bus and rode it all the way around to T3 and my flight. Up through security and to my gate and then lots of hanging out.

The nice part about that was that T3 has a great view of the runways so I spent a lot of time watching planes queueing and/or taking off and taking pictures — it was great. We finally boarded about 15 minutes late and I got onto one of the nicest planes and flights I’ve ever had — 2 of them in a row, in fact. See my previous blog entry about my airline reviews and read up about Frontier — they’re awesome!

Minneapolis, Which Should Have Been Mega-apolis

So, a brief stopover in DEN where I spent the majority of the time walking around and trying to find a good view of the mountains (which I never did — they’re apparently a long ways away from the airport) and then back on another Frontier flight to MSP. Got in there, landed nicely, and to the gate. Got off, walked to baggage, and Dad was waiting for me there. He gave me a big hug and then said, “Want the bad news?”

I looked at him, “Uh…yeah, sure.”

“Your wife is stuck in Denver.”

I laughed. “Right!” I said, thinking it was a cute joke.

“Nope, really. Her flight got in late and she missed her connection, they’re putting her up in a hotel.”

Turns out that her United flight left LAX 2 hours late and got into DEN just as the other plane was leaving. The airline put the entire flight up in hotels and gave them $18 in vouchers to use as well. So, I got to talk to Landa when I got home for awhile, and then had to run back up to Minneapolis the next night to get her, as she came in on a morning flight the next day.

Thankfully our friend Kath, who lives up there, got her from the airport and they hung out all day and then brought her as far south as Fairbault. We had some Perkins and did a bit of grocery shopping and then went home, absolutely and totally beat — lots of slow blinking on the way home, I guarantee.

The End….Really

Wow….that turned into a really, really long posting, but maybe some of you will actually read it all the way through. If you do, congratulations — you made it to the end. I promise next time will be pictures and much more interesting comings-and-goings.