Steve, are we there yet? Steve, are we there yet?

So after our flight to LA something good came out of Shaye being so sick – we got to cut ahead of the immigration line at LAX. Thanks Shaye! After getting our photo and finger prints taken we collected our one bag and headed towards terminal 4 – Welcome to the United States of America!

Both kids made the comment that it didn’t feel like they were in another country and they were right. All we had seen so far was concrete, bitumen and lots of blue uniforms. But once we got into New Orleans I told them, then it will feel like we were in America. 

We waited at the terminal for our Dallas flight for a while and Shaye got to catch up on some sleep.

 

Jackson got to try out some local delicacies

 

And Steve just chilled reading his book.

 

We found the free WiFi and got online – talk about withdrawals! Everyone was checking their emails and twitter accounts to make sure they hadn’t missed anything while I started our first post.

So after waiting a few hours we finally got on our plane………and proceeded to wait another 2 hours for our flight to take off. FFS.

See what American Airlines had done was put out the call to everyone that the flight was full and would people be willing to put their hand luggage into checked luggage for free. Sounds great but so many people did it that it took 2 hours to load the plane up again. This meant that our flight to New Orleans was going to be in the air while we will be on our way to Dallas.

Dallas airport is HUGE! So HUGE that it has its own monorail to connect to all the terminals. So like an episode of Amazing Race, we ran to the monorail to make our way to the right terminal hoping like hell that our flight was still there. And it wasn’t. It had left 20 minutes ago and the next flight to New Orleans was 2 hours later which they put us on Stand By for. Turns out there were 16 people on Stand By so the chances of getting on were sweet f all. Steve made the executive decision to come off stand by, stay the night in Dallas and catch the next flight to Baton Rouge at 6am the next morning and drive to New Orleans.  All compliments of American Airlines – food vouchers and all.

 

Waiting at Dallas for Baton Rouge flight

We made it into Baton Rouge safely (and no spews) and headed towards New Orleans. Steve’s driving skills were better than the first time he drove in America but the old catch cry of ‘My side to the curb’ came back with a vengeance. It didn’t help that all of us were sleep deprived and even suffering with vertigo from the flights.

Our first stop was to the Waffle House were for the bargain price of $6.49 you can get a big breakfast – 2 eggs, toast, waffles, bacon, sausage and coffee. God Bless America. After eating our waffles, biscuits and hash browns  we made our way to the New Orleans airport to pick up our suitcase and onto our hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans – I was home!

 

So we have finally arrived safe and sound. While the issues with the flights was a pain in the arse I am hoping that those will be the only hiccups on this holiday. Famous last words?