Davo has landed

We are finally in the USA. But we had a few funny things happen to us on the way.

First a get out of bed at 4am on Thursday morning, then shuttle to the airport only to be told the flight was going to be delayed three hours.

Why?” you ask. Well apparently some birds struck the plane as it was coming into Hobart. This meant those people with connecting flights had to go on another plane with a rival company.

Got onto the flight from Melbourne at 9.25am on Thursday 15 September then we arrived in Los Angeles before we even started at 6.55am Thursday 15 September. Miss Wyatt says it has something to do with timezones and daylight saving and a wriggly line on the earth. Perhaps some of you could explain in more clearly in a blog post linked back to this post.

Then we got to the customs checkpoint and Miss W didn’t fill in the section about where we were staying, because we weren’t really sure. Miss W. just drives till about 4pm and then gets us a motel for the night.

So we had to leave the custom queue and go back and get an address of roughly where we would be or a school we would be going to.

Eventually through customs (including the vegemite which we declared) and around to pick up our transport. A cute little compact car.

Now how to get out of Los Angeles – we were told turn right then left onto Manchester then right on Lincoln and keep following as this is Highway 1 North. Miss W. then looked at her very small map of California and decided we needed to be on Highway 5. Fail. This meant turn onto Highway 10 East then to highway 405 North and eventually onto Highway 5.

Now some of these highways were actually freeways and, as we were driving on the wrong side of the road but so was everyone else, it turned out fine. Until we pulled off to get a drink. Miss W. hung a left off the freeway but forgot to get in the right lane. Luckily only one car was coming toward her and she manoeuvered out of trouble.

Meanwhile I had my eyes closed because I was so jet lagged.

This all happened on day 1 of our trip – wonder what will happen next.

Perhaps you could leave a comment or write a post about travelling in heavy traffic or problems you have had when travelling overseas or overseas time zones.

All images taken by Miss W. and can be found at Miss W’s photostream on flickr. Feel free to use them in your posts.

 

Threatened relatives

MarsupialsDid you know today is Threatened Species Day in Australia?

There are over 1600 species of animal that are currently on the list; this does not include plants. Many of my relatives are on this list.

Back in 1936 on this day, the last Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacine died in the zoo in Hobart, Tasmania. This animal was hunted to extinction as it was thought to kill the sheep. It looked like a large dog but was actually a marsupial.

People around Tasmania are having lots of different activities to remember those relatives of mine that are threatened or endangered.

Do you have any threatened or endangered animals near where you live? Have you actually seen these animals?

Perhaps you could leave a comment here or write a post in your blog about one of the animals you would like to see taken off the threatened species or endangered list in your country, state or province.

Image: ‘Marsupials