Today is The Day!

In a rare Thursday posting I am wishing all of you safety, happiness and good health. No, it's not THE holidays but it is the official start of my long-awaited and much anticipated "holiday" in New Zealand and Australia. Today is the day!

After months of waiting and weeks of pre-planning I still find myself this morning running around tying up loose ends. I forgot until this morning that I still needed to buy a decent pillow for the flight and the hotels. Long days at work meant being up today at 6AM to get laundry done before I can start packing and I still have to cut my hair And Mother Nature never disappoints in bringing two days of rain to the Dallas area to play havoc with American's flight schedule to Los Angeles!

Don't worry, be happy. It's October in North Texas: images like this are not exaggerated or uncommon. They're mesmerizingly beautiful to watch so long as you don't have to work outside or have some place to be. I have and I do.

I nixed the idea of a half day at work both in anticipation of the perfect storm: bad weather, flight delays and any chance of a last minute fire drill in the office. It's raining as I write this, American is a great airline but notoriously bad in operating on time in bad weather and "one-more-thing-I'm-on-my-way-to-a-meeting-and-need-a-quick-and-dirty-report" at work will easily add up to a full day of "As long as you're still here...." Not! I told them they could call me as long as I was in the United States but no more than that!

So here I sit at 7:45AM waiting on the laundry to dry so I can pack for a flight that doesn't leave until 5:00PM. A friend is taking his lunch hour to drive me the 10 minutes to the airport which further helps me get ahead of any delays out of Dallas. My tickets were purchased separately so missing one means neither airline will do anything to protect my itinerary. I've got a free pass to the Admirals' Club so I do not mind whatsoever potentially sitting in LAX for up to 10 hours if that's what it takes to make this all-important flight to New Zealand.

"How long is the flight," I have been asked by one and all. "Well, take-off out of LAX around Midnight, hook a left and then 12 hours straight on 'til morning," I borrow from "Peter Pan." Some roll their eyes at the poetic license while others groan at the thought of the combined flying time. I've done the trip several times before and, as I may have mentioned, refuse to truncate the world based on time spent getting to interesting and uniquely beautiful environs.

Not much more to say from this side of the Pacific other than I've been barely able to contain myself this entire week! I may do the odd posting while I'm away but I'm truly looking forward to simply getting away for several days. Something may pop up, though...ya never know!

Gotta go!