Road tripping USA 2023

Woke up to the alarm going off at 3.30am, surprisingly we both slept quite well which is unusual for the night before an adventure.

Macie and Louie knew something was going on and will not be impressed that mum and dad aren’t home for 6 weeks. Lucky they have Tommy keeping them in line and fed for 6 weeks.

Dave and I got organised packing the last few things before waking Bryd, Kenz and Tommy who were taking us to the airport.

The trip down went smoothly leaving home about 4.30am and arriving at the airport at 6.30am. After a sad goodbye to the girls and Tommy, it was time to head into the airport and await check-in.

Check-in opened at 7.30am so we headed over, checked the weight of our 4 suitcases which all came under the 23kgs allowed thankfully. Then over to the kiosk to print our boarding passes and bag tags.

While doing this, Dave said ‘Looks like the Ruane’s might be on the flight with us’. Jenny then headed over to us and said that Patrick was heading to Canada for a 2 week ski trip and it turned out we are on the same flight. Small world.

All was going well until we lined up to check-in our baggage. The baggage conveyor belt was malfunctioning so there was a delay. Ironically with our last trip to the States back in 2019, the baggage conveyor belt malfunctioned on our return so we were stuck in baggage claim for over an hour and a half!

By 8.30am we were on our way through security before a quick obligatory photo at the departures sign - well according to Dave it wasn’t so quick as I wasn’t happy with the first few photos we took as I looked like I woke up at 3.30am - funny that!

Breezed through security and then sat at gate 79 ready for our flight.

While waiting we both had a bit of a chuckle as one of our pilots walked passed with some duty free alcohol and then another one walked passed with a guitar. Party plane!!

We were meant to take off at 10.45am however didn’t start taxiing out until 11.17am. We arrived in Vancouver at 6.00am local time.

Thankfully my gluten free meals came and were quite nice, even the bread which can be iffy at times. Dave said his meals were nice. I had chicken and corn and Dave had a chicken dish for our main meals, Dave a chicken wrap and biscuits and me harissa vegetable sandwich for a snack and then eggs for breakfast. Dave got 2 breakfasts as I don’t normally eat eggs at the best of times let alone ones that have been kept hot for 13 hours 😂

Not much sleep was had, about an hour at a time with a couple of hours in between those sleep times. There was also quite a bit of turbulence, only subtle making it feel more like you are in a bus not a plane.

The aircraft from Brisbane to Vancouver wasn’t as large as we are accustomed to, so with a 6ft 7 and a 5ft 10 couple sitting next to each other together with a guy who insisted on sitting with his legs up on his seat next to me, all the while touching me with his shoeless foot (yuk) made for a cramped flight but we made it!

We had a 2 hour layover in Vancouver however by the time we disembarked, made our our through the airport to USA connections, then pre-clearance of customs and security for the USA then all the way to Gate 76E, we only had about half an hour spare before we boarded our next flight to NYC. In this time, we put our USA sims in our phones and chatted with mum, the girls and Cathy.

Flight to NYC was about 5 hours which isn’t a long flight but as it’s the last part of our journey for the day, it seemed to take a bit longer than we wished 😂

As it is basically a domestic flight, the aircraft is small and Dave was nearly ready to jump out of the plane I think. No leg room at all. He sat sideways with his legs in the aisle which helped a little. There were no meals on this part of the flight so we were both looking forward to dinner in NYC.

First we needed to claim our bags at Newark before working out how to take the AirTrain to NJ transit to get the subway into Penn Station. We are staying at the New Yorker which is right near Penn Station so it is just a quick walk and we would be at our hotel. Well….. after the flight my brain was fried and not working well. No one at Newark really helped unlike when you fly into JFK so I said stuff it we are getting a taxi. Cost a bit ($140.00 USA) but taxi driver was lovely and dropped us right out the front of our hotel.

It is pretty cold with the temperature at present being -5.6 but feels like -11.6 so a bit different to Toowoomba winters. We are staying at the New Yorker Hotel in a queen room and it’s just a room, not very big at all but that’s all we need for a one night stay. We spent some time looking at the shops and walking around but it got just too cold. We head off to Nisky tomorrow for a week with Cathy and Michael.

Back in the room ready for some chill out time as it’s been a huge couple of days. We started our journey at 3.30am on Saturday and some 30 hours later and not much sleep we made it to our hotel room.Read more