Going to America

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Another boring day in transit today! The alarm was set for 6.00am so that we could get to the airport in good time for our 10.40am flight to Chicago. It was cold, wet and miserable again today so not all that difficult to be leaving England behind - although we will certainly miss the Stalybridge hospitality. Kath and Albert saw us off at about 7.30am in their dressing gowns. With the weather no good for gardening I think they were going to go back to bed for a while.

We had a smooth run to Manchester Airport arriving there in about 20 minutes. As American Airlines Flight 55 was departing from Terminal 3 we parked the Golf on the roof of the multi-story car park at Terminal 3. That seemed like the logical thing to do, right? The AVIS office on the roof was closed and a notice directed us to the office at ground level. The office at ground level was closed and a notice there redirected us - again - to the AVIS office in Terminal 1. Grrrr, we could have allowed extra time if we knew there would be this much stuffing around.

Rather than haul our bags over to Terminal 1 and then back to Terminal 3, Bernie left me with the bags in Terminal 3 while he tracked down an AVIS office that was actually staffed this morning. Eventually Bernie found someone to hand the keys to over on Level 13 of the multi-story car park at Terminal 1. Apparently AVIS is operating with minimal staffing over this four day Bank Holiday/Jubilee Holiday weekend. Fair enough, but maybe people dropping cars off over the weekend could have been warned to allow extra time to roam all over Manchester airport looking for somewhere to return the hire car keys???

Next stop check-in. We used one of the self check-in terminals which produced boarding passes with no seat allocation. Oh dear, we wondered, will we be seated together for our flight across the Atlantic?? From check-in we proceeded through a security interview and then to the bag drop counter. At the bag drop counter we were told that we would receive our seat allocation at the gate. The Optimist (Bernie) was thinking, you beauty, are we going to get an upgrade? The Pessimist (Tracey) was thinking we would be seated separately for our flight to Chicago. After we had checked the bags we had to carry them over to a trolley because they were soft-sided and couldn't go on the conveyor belt??? We haven't had any trouble previously with the bags being sent off on the conveyor belt.

After check-in it was all the usual pre-flight stuff and then we were able to proceed to the gate. After a short delay while they cleared the people on this morning's New York, we were able to go to the desk at the gate to find out about our seat allocation. When we first arrived there was only flight crew at the desk - no ground staff who could actually sort out our seat allocation. Eventually the ground staff arrived and provisional boarding passes were collected from us and a handful of other people.

We waited a while and then we were called up to the desk ... to discover that we had been allocated seat in an exit row with extra leg room. Apparently these seats can be pre-purchased for £38.00, but if they are unsold they are allocated at the gate. We're not sure how we were selected for this premium seating, but we certainly enjoyed being able to stretch our legs out on the flight.

We left Manchester on time and (presumably) with the assistance of a strong tail wind we landed at O'Hare Airport in Chicago an hour early!! That extra hour meant that we had cleared immigration by the time that we were scheduled to arrive. Bonus! Our customs form asked if we had had any contact with farm animals for example touching or handling. Bernie had ticked no, but then they were making announcements about needing to tell customs staff if you had walked on farmland prior to arrival in the United States. We thought we should say that we had hiked on farmland so we were directed to a screening queue rather than being able to walk on through to the baggage carousels.

At the screening point we weren't even asked why we were there, we were just told to put our bags on the X-ray machine. After collecting our bags, Bernie thought that we should just go - we had given them the chance to inspect and/or disinfect our shoes and it wasn't our problem if they hadn't. I insisted on alerting a customs staff member to the fact that we had hiked on farmland in England on Thursday ... so we were taken off to sit outside a room with our shoes off while they cleaned them!! That's one way to get a free shoe clean.

We collected our bags from the carousel and then caught the courtesy bus to the Dollar Cars depot where we picked up the keys to a Mustang convertible. After squeezing our luggage into the boot (it's got less boot space than the Golf) it occurred to us that while this vehicle is absolutely the 'right' car to drive Route 66 in, it may not be the most practical??

Edna was programmed to take us to Ray's Bucktown B&B and we were on our way - driving on the wrong side of the road. We arrived at Ray's without any problems and goot ourselves checked in for the next three nights. We met the B&B's psycho cat Maggie - apparently Maggie is good at pretending that you are her new best friend and then turning on you. Maggie has just been clipped and is sporting a magnificent lion cut.

On the way to Ray's, Bernie had spotted a Home Depot store just a few blocks away from the B&B. We decided to drive over there to see if we could buy an esky to keep a few drinks on ice while we are on the road. It took us ages to find the eskies aka coolers. We hadn't asked where to find them because we couldn't decide what the Americans might call them and there would be no point asking for an esky here!! When we eventually found the coolers the style we wanted to buy was a one-off that was shop-soiled and slightly damaged. It turned out it was marked down so we bought it anyway since we are going to abandon it at the end of Route 66.

By late afternoon it was nearly midnight in Manchester so we were starting to have to fight the urge to go to sleep! We persevered though and managed to stay awake until we could go for an early dinner at a local Cuban restaurant. The food was delicious and quite similar to Mexican food. After walking back to Ray's it wasn't long before we were in bed asleep.

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