Friday the 1st July, my last day at work, and I'm still wondering what to pack for my trip.  I have been doing some research on the weather in Yellowstone, and all the advice is; pack for four seasons, and of course Las Vegas is definitely going to be hot at this time of year.  This doesn't bode well for weight in my case.  Only 1 allowed this time round.  It's going to be strange not lugging two suitcases around with me, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Saturday was spent as any Saturday is, last minute shopping.  I also managed to set a few things out on the lounge room floor to see if there was anything I'd missed.

Sunday dawns and I start on the packing, but the suitcase was filled before I'd even started on the toiletries and electronics.  Looks like Big Mack is coming out of the closet for another flight.  Great idea if I want to buy lots of stuff but then BM will still only be half full, which probably won't be good for the contents that could find themselves changing position constantly, and the chance of breakage of any fragile items.  This is starting to sound like the story of the 3 suitcases, one is too small, one is too big, maybe the next one will be just right.  The only problem with mamma case is; all the zip tags are missing from a time when our John used it for his first trip to America.  Customs cut all his locks off and managed to do the same to the zip tags.  That problem was finally solved with small padlocks added as tags.  Where there's a will, there's a way.  I got everything transferred over and case is not too full, not too empty, just enough room for a few souvenirs.  Now for the important part, the weight.  Not looking too good, I'm well over weight and I still haven't added the electronics and toiletries.  Time for a cuppa and a rethink of what I really don't need with me.  It's amazing what a good cuppa can do for the mind, it dawned on me that I was, once again, reading the scale wrong, I was reading lbs instead of kilos and finished my packing with room to spare.

Monday morning and I'm at the hairdressers early, (I have a grey drag stripe that needs recolouring before it becomes the whole race track), followed by a physio appointment.  That's the whole morning gone, leaving me to just lock up the house and head of to Bernie & Tony's for the night as we have a 5.45am flight to catch.  I dropped my car at Graham and Cathy's at 3pm, swung by Bernie's work to pick up her pay, then home for tea.  Bernie had curry and rice in mind for tea, but on second thoughts decided that wasn't a good choice for a long plane flight, so fish and chips won the day.  Bernie and I did our usual, stayed up all night, might make for a better sleep on the long flight from Sydney to Denver.

The taxi arrived at 4.50 for a quick trip to the airport.  I guess that is one good thing about early morning flights, there is not a lot of traffic on the road, at least not until you get closer to the airport.  The flight left on time and we had a rather nice breakfast (apart from the yoghurt), and I did have a bit of fun with my cupcake.  Have you ever packed a packet of potato chips in your hand luggage and seen the bag expanding?  That's what happened to the cup cake bag.  Nothing out of the ordinary really, but, it does make it difficult to get a good grip on both sides to open it.  The hostie suggested stabbing the bag with my knife, not an easy feat with a plastic knife to start with, but I asked her if it would be a good idea to frighten the passengers with such a bang.  Luckily the plastic knife just make a small hole that released the air without scaring anyone.

We landed in Sydney at 11.18am (9.28 Perth Time = PT) after a bit of a bumpy ride down, then we couldn't find a parking spot, just as bad as the shopping centres around here at the moment.  This wasn't a big concern though as our scheduled time of arrival was 11.40, had a good tail wind.  We now have a couple of hours wait as we don't board our flight to Denver till 2pm.  Whilst waiting to board we had a couple of tense moments when calls came over the PA for 2 Georgina's to go to the service desk, thankfully neither of them was me.  We all slept a fair bit on the 13 hour flight to Denver, helped to get us into the right time zone.  After some delays we finally arrived in Jackson Hole Wyoming at 10pm, scheduled time of arrival was 9.10pm, only to find my suitcase never left San Francisco.  Not a good start to our holiday but the airport did give me a little essentials pack to get me through the night.  Not that I would use most of it but the thought was there.  11pm we finally arrived at our hotel, The Pony Express, a quick snack across the road at Macca's and into bed for the long drive to West Yellowstone in the morning, wondering what I'll wear, I don't think we'll get there on BO although it is a bit cheaper than BP.