Day Five (Tuesday) - 0500 Wake Up...

 .....annnnnd cancelled.

Due to wind and fog our balloon ride was cancelled.

So after waking up at 0500 to check the balloon hotline, we were back in bed and fast asleep at 0502. No time to be disappointed, when there is sleep to be had.

Once we had dragged our carcasses out of bed we managed to rebook another flight with a different company for the next day.  The original company was fully booked, but as luck would have it, that would work in our favour, more about that tomorrow.

So, for plan B, another road trip.

We jumped in the car and headed for Sonoma, a really pretty town about an hour from Napa.  It was a great drive and a nice way to seem more of the area.

We think Lyle (Harvey) may have a side hustle going on!

Here is Sonoma City Hall - a bit different to the council offices back home.

It would have been an awesome experience to go to the movies here, but it was closed on the day we were there.

This servo caught our attention on the way into town. Not sure the moody teenage girls were that happy being papped.

After some lunch at a bakery we headed back to Napa.

Here we are waiting for our expensive bread rolls...

Not exactly sure how we ended up here, but we did, OK!

Day Four (Monday) - Hello Outlet Shopping and another trip to Walmart

Rule #1 - Ryan has a two hour window period when on a shopping expedition before the attention, patience and commitment to the greater good wains.

I am not sure if old age hitting 40 has changed things, as he managed to stretch out things a little longer.  So much so that we had to visit Walmart to buy another bag.

As we always seem to do, we became well acquainted with the hotel laundromat.  After two loads of washing and having to get new jeans dried in a cool dryer to ensure they didn't shrink we now had a whole lot more clothing to pick from.

We also attempted to play tennis.  OK so I attempted to play tennis while Ryan was kept busy lookin for the stray balls that were it over the fence into neighboring properties. I am pleased he got a bit of a run around.

Time for another nap.

No real photo action today - so here is one of our new best friend, the washing machine..

Early night tonight, as tomorrow is one of Ryan's birthday presents.... a hot air balloon ride over the Napa Valley.

Day Three (Sunday - local time) - Downtown Napa

 Not much to report today - just looking around Napa.  "Downtown" is very pretty with most of the architecture from the 1800's.

We were still a bit jetlagged, so naps were essential along with a trip to Walmart....just because.

We found a good Mexican hangout in Napa and filled our bellies with our favourite food.... we were craving vegetables too.

One thing we noticed really quickly, the level of service has dropped a bit and the cost of things here has skyrocketed.  Think... Aussie prices using US currency, so tacos are more expensive here than back at home!

 

Day Two: Off to Oakland, Vallejo and Napa

Welcome to LAX (again), add some Easter chaos, with a dash off a bunch of people who, like us, have not flown for a while and have absolutely no clue (maybe not us).

Stepping out of the cab at Terminal 2, there was a queue a mile long for people wanting curb side check in.  Lucky our somewhat jetlagged intuition kicked in and we broke through the wall of people wanting to check in their luggage on the curb to find a bank of kiosks for the self-check in.  Voila, bag tags - printed, boarding passes - printed, and after a 10 minute wait in the bag drop queue we were all done. The lady who checked our credentials and baggage weight seemed relieved that we had our act together and wished us well for the next part of our adventure (it was clear the circus had rolled into town and many people had packed their brains in their baggage).  The next part of the adventure....TSA.  Actually that was as expected and in no time were we waiting in a very crowded terminal for our flight having an over priced breakfast.

We found some seats out of the way, so out of the way that we missed our boarding call.  

There was an early boarding as we were to be bussed to the aircraft....  there is nothing like hearing your name called out over the loud speakers.

We both broke the land-speed record getting to the gate, I think we may have got the gold medal for hurdling the boarding gate lane ropes too.

An airside bus ride around LAX is always fun, and within a few minutes we joined the rest of the masked up people on our baby jet.

This is the view from our plane looking at another baby plane.

As usual Ryan was asleep before engine start (that is the reason he is never, ever, ever, ever allowed to have the window seat, ever.  Unlike the pissy little princess on the previous flight, Ryan slept the whole way and woke up as we were on a rather bumpy descent into OAK.

For me, the nerves were beginning to hit - In an hour or two I was about to meet some of Ryan's family (from Lyle's side) - Aunty Shirley, Uncle Wally, Heather, Suzy and Liz.  

But first - the drive, on the other side of the road in a part of the US that we had never been before.

Luckily Clyde kept things calm and we arrived in Vallejo in one piece to a very warm welcome.  It was really lovely to meet the other side of the family.  Ryan had not seen them since 1991.

After spending some time at Aunty Shirley and Uncle Wally's lovely home we headed up the road for about 45 minutes to our hotel in Napa - the Silverado Resort & Spa.

  

Later that day (once the fully booked hotel had found our “lost” reservation, and had to upgrade us to a suite) we had a late lunch with the cuzzies at a good spot in Napa Valley.

RWO40 - It’s been a while…time for another adventure overseas!

Well here we are, on the road again. Ok not so much the road, but the runway and then a road trip. After a rather long break (thanks COVID!) the passports have been dusted off and we prepare to head to the USA for Ryan’s birthday. Not just any birthday, but his 40th. #oldfart.

It has been a while since we have travelled long-haul so a little more preparation was required with pre-flight COVID tests, various declarations and additional documentation checks at the airport. Nothing beats wearing a face mask for 14 hours, not only the recirculation of aircraft cabin air but also your own breath, plus a dash of nappy fumes (keep reading)...  Tasty! 

Not a bad view for a low circuit over Brisbane city.

We jumped online at -80 hours to departure to score better seats in cattle class (yep, there is an 80 hour rule where the high value seats are released for the cheap asses).  Feeling quite clever with having grabbed the 2nd row of economy.....until we boarded..... the front row of economy is where the bassinets are......

Annnnnd welcome into the picture the two year old.  The two year old who we assumed may get a little tired quickly and have a weee lil nap.  Also enter from stage right the mother and mother-in-law who appeared not to be the seasoned travelers one may expect with an infant. One may expect to have a number of toys or activities to keep the little #$%&ing brat princess busy for 14 hours.  Nope. Just one doll.  Yep that was going to do the trick.  Luckily there were some empty seats adjacent to the trio.  Yet still, after spreading their crap out over five seats across two rows plus a bassinet the little gem of a darling still needed a harpoon gun laced with heavy tranquillizers to bring it down.  I am pleased to report that success was achieved (the infant fell asleep without any harpooning necessary) at top of descent, just as the Californian coastline came into sight. Great timing! We were met with an impressive view of downtown LA and the Hollywood hills in the distance just before the Dunlops smoked up as the gently kissed the pavement at LAX.

Note to self - homeward bound seats will be no where near the bassinet section of the Airbus.

With all of that aside the flight was OK.  Not the usual service, smaller food portions but a number of refreshment offerings throughout the flight.  The NZ based crew were really attentive and we managed to watch a few movies and the usual inflight entertainment stuff.

As you could imagine we were thanking our lucky stars that we had booked a room at the Westin for our arrival and a post-flight nap was well deserved followed by a quick trip to Denny's to remind ourselves of the stunning American cuisine.

The jetlag bug bit a little harder than expected, so to counter that we had some pool deck time to get the Vitamin D up too.

Some good rest was achieved which was really important as we were readying ourselves to take on LAX again the next day for our non-stop-Embraer E175-jet-service-to-Oakland (during the Easter holiday weekend).