Normally you can fly from Melbourne to Minneapolis in just under 24 hours.  Normally.  But that didn’t happen last Monday.  Picture this:

Up really early and leave home by 7am to beat peak hour to get to Kellies.  Struggle to be there by 8am because of bad traffic.  But delivered to Tullamarine in plenty of time to check in our enormous amount of luggage and have breakfast before boarding the flight to Sydney.  Smooth flight, no problems but leave book (borrowed from generous friend) in pocket of seat when getting off for transit stop.  Plane cleaners now have another copy of Twilight!  Upon boarding THE SAME PLANE we were informed there was a ‘minor technical hitch’ so would be a 10 minute delay before take off.  4 hours later we were asked to disembark, the flight was cancelled and we would be accomodated overnight. (‘But we will give everyone a Granola bar as they depart ….’)  Collect luggage and line up for two hours but when we finally get to the desk we find out we can get on a flight with another airline later that day. SO, go back through customs, line up to check in again at the replacement airline and just make it back through customs and to the gate before this flight departs…….about 9 hours after we should have left Sydney.  But on the upside, V Australia  was great to fly with….good food, nice new planes (great chance to catch up on the latest movies) and excellent service.  Although the rest of the trip went without a hitch the connecting flights had to be changed as well so we had quite a wait in LA then a frantic run in Chicago to make the last leg to Minneapolis.

But when we finally arrived the lovely Thimbleanna was waiting to meet us, drive us to the hotel where she had packed us a gorgeous basket of goodies to eat and drink.  And then it was off to Hudson, Wisconsin to visit a great quilting and antique shop (whose name I can’t remember!)

From then on it was crazily busy getting ready for the show………but that’s all a story for another post.