12th October 2016. Preparations and Packing- afternoon of 12th October, 2016 and Arrival 13 October 2016.

The late afternoon of 12th October came upon us very quickly and at 5.00pm we have just commenced packing and the usual discussions have occurred such as "you won't need that" as well as "you have more clothes than me. "

We are now genuinely excited as to meeting several friends in both Canada and USA.  The weather in Melbourne has continued to frustrate our efforts as to the garden and completion of the water feature as another feature and highlight of our new high home.  Much remains for Dean his team to complete prior to our return in early December.

Jeanette and Ken have each had duties to complete earlier today as to Church activities as well as the last minute completion of family activities. Jeanette visited Chris's home to leave keys and garage door Zappers to allow entry. 

This evening will be quiet as we finalise advices to friends, complete packing apart from last minute issues and finally determine what will be included in our hand luggage. 

During the week Ken spoke to Gavin, our driver, who confirmed he will pick us up shortly after 7.00am tomorrow. Prior to his arrival Ken will switch off our boiler and turn the HWS to vacation mode.

We have checked in, but need to have our passports verified at the airport tomorrow morning.  We are flying UA99 Melbourne to Los Angeles on a new 789 Dreamliner with seats 8a and 8b.  It is a 14 hour 15 minute flight and an early arrival in Los Angeles where we have a 2 hour stopover to get through to migration and customs then to the terminal for our Virgin America flight to San Francisco.

Upon arrival there we are met by Our Blacklane driver and driven into Union Square where we are staying at the Hilton San Francisco for one night.  That afternoon we are doing a cruise out to Alcatraz and doing a two hour excorted walking tour.  We come back following the excursion and will hopefully ride a cable car, have a meal then turn in early. 

We do hope to get several hours sleep on the plane as the beds are quite comfortable and we should be tired after the early start.  Well we did sleep quite well and can say it was an excellent flight.  Breakfast was served at 5.00am and we both felt pretty good. We landed ahead of schedule and were through immigration in some 35 minutes using the new automated system.  We picked up our luggage quite quickly and made our way to Terminal 3.  We were through checkin and security in a quick time of 20 minutes and had about 45 minutes before our flight was scheduled to board.  But we then found out that there would be a delay due to heavy fog.  That really threw a spanner in our plans, but nothing you can do, but accept and hope to make it up. 

The aircraft eventually departed close to an hour late and this meant we eventually checked in using our HHonors membership at about 12.00pm so we had less that 30 minutes to get down to Pier 33 by taxi from Union Square.  We were really pushing the time envelope to get down to the pier and then join our cruise for our tour of Alcatraz Island.