Touchdown! (written Feb 7&9th - Wednesday never happened!)

Tuesday Feb 7th:

730 am - blueberry oatmeal
1 pm - planned departure for BWI
1:50 pm - ACTUAL depature for BWI

BWI Airport Security: shockingly quick, despite a line the length of the Mississippi Rive

Seating: Roomy (cheers for economy plus)
Moon: full & blood orange, changing to mandarin gold

TAKEOFF!

Estimated flight time:  5 hours 16 minutes

Sunset from the plane: Incredibly beautiful. Stacked layers of color saturation turning into swaths of red and gray like a beta fish's tail

* "One of the marvels of modern science. You can pee at 30,000 feet."

Dinner and a show - we'd packed peanut butter banana sandwiches on multigrain bread (delicious) and watched "The Big Bang Theory."

Inflight Movie: "The Three Musketeers."
My only question: "WHY are they ninjas?"
The tunes: Rockin'

Eventually the clouds broke up and we flew over the Rockies. The full moon reflected on the snowy mountains, illuminating the ranges, single points of light scattered through the snowy darkness indicating homes and outposts in the vastness.

Gin Rummy Scores: suffice it to say I won

1:15 am EST - arrival in LAX. The cloud cover over LA glowed orange with the lights of the city by night.

Wolfgang Puck's in LAX for a midnight snack.


TAKEOFF (again)
being sleepy, we slept through the beginning of the flight. By the time I looked out the window again, all that was below was a vast blue ocean lit by the moon. In the words of Joss Whedon, if you looked too long you could "go bibbledy over it."


We slept again. And woke up. And fell asleep again. And watched a movie or seven. (The half of "The Big Year" I saw was GREAT)

Our first sunrise over the Pacific!

 Don't we look pretty after a zillion hours of flying??

Indiana Backe, filling out his customs intake form.

Australian Customs: Super friendly! None of this carrying a big gun nonsense. More like, "Nothing illegal? Get on with you then!"

Our cousins meeting us at the airport: AWESOME!