Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I’m not really looking forward to today. We’re currently in Chicago and fly to Los Angeles later this afternoon (4+ hour flight), then we have a 5 hour wait at LAX before the 14+ hour flight to Sydney. Once we arrive in Sydney we have another 2+ hour wait before the 3+ flight to Cairns. I figure that from getting up in Chicago this morning to arriving in Palm Cove, Queensland it will be about 35 hours elapsed time. And with my history of not sleeping on planes, that could be 35 hours without sleep…

However, I’ve now got my talking book MP3s on my player so I hope the 14 hour battery life lives up to expectations! If nothing else, I’ll get some books ‘read’ while on the flights. I’ve also got a real book to read and some Sudoku puzzles, and a Kafka short story, and then there’s the movies on Qantas.

Our friend Dave is on the same flights from LA to Cairns, though I have no idea if we’re sitting near him or not. He sleeps anyway – takes those little pills (the ones that don’t work for me) and zonks out for the duration. Lucky man.

At least we can do the airport ‘hang around’ time in the Qantas and American Airlines lounges. I’ve heard that the Qantas Club lounge at LAX has been upgraded – not before time; it was awful. I’ll find out this evening…

Update: We were in Terminal 4 at LAX and you share the lounge with American Airlines, so it was large and spacious and much better than the little hole they put you into in the Tom Bradley Terminal. I cat napped on the plane and as the overhead light was dazzling in the darkened capsule of the plane, I listened to about 12 chapters of a Bill Bryson book.