Arrived in Los Angeles

After 20 hours travelling and 3 hours to get through customs, immigration and get our car, we are finally at Luke (Ros's son) and Michelle's place. We arrived at 9.30am local time, just under 4 hours after we left Perth (16 hour time difference).

The flight was OK, we hit a fair bit of turbulence about 5 hours out from L.A. that continued for a few hours, but it wasn't too bad. We were supposed to be on an Airbus A380 for the Sydney to L.A. leg but when we boarded we discovered it had been switched to a 747-400. However it had been refurbished with the same seats that are now in the A380, so when you recline, the bottom of the seat slides forward, allowing you to lie a little flatter. The headrests also fold up at the sides so they support your head when sleeping. Ros didn't sleep at all, spent the entire 13 hours watching movies, I managed to get about 3 hours, with the aid of some sleeping tablets.

The new seats also have the new entertainment units, with a large selection of movies and TV series to watch. I watched around 4 movies, then decided to watch the IT Crowd and The Big Bang Theory. Here I am in a darkened plane with most people around me fast asleep and I'm laughing my head off! Oh dear.

Our car is a Chevrolet Impala, a V6 with all the mod cons. Tried to find the park brake, there was no hand brake or foot pedal visible. Finally found it on the dashboard, it's been replaced by a switch!

Chevy Impala

Handbrake!

Anyway, fired up the good old GPS we brought with us, switched to the US maps and it unerringly guided us to Luke and Michelle's place. They are currently visiting friends up in Wyoming so we have the place to ourselves. This is my third visit to the US and driving was almost automatic now, I had no trouble adjusting to driving on the right side of the road or sitting on the left side of the vehicle.

Joshua (Ros's other son) and his wife Sam met us there and we went over to my favourite restaurant, the Woodranch BBQ Steakhouse, which is just a short walk away and had my favourite TriTip smoked steak with an Idaho Baked potato, complete with whipped butter and sour cream and a peanut coleslaw. Delicious! We will be revisiting this restaurant several times while we are here. After that, Josh took us to an Italian restaurant nearby that sells gelato ice-cream and we all had a cone of that, mine was salted caramel with chocolate chips all through it, also very delicious.

After that it was back home to talk, but soon the lack of sleep started catching up on us, so Josh and Sam left us to let us go to bed. Ros retired at 4.30pm but I managed to hang on till around 6pm before I joined her. Woke up twice during the night, but we both managed to get a reasonable night's sleep and this morning we don't feel too jet-lagged at all.

Just to prove where we are

Today is Josh and Sam's third wedding anniversary and erstwhile followers of my blog will remember my previous postings from their wedding in Hawaii. We are going to meet them tonight in Santa Monica where we will be going to an Argentinian restaurant for tea to celebrate their anniversary.