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Published: February 15th 2015
The Airport
Got Luggage?Our second foray to the United States began on the 18 December as we boarded our United Airlines flight for San Francisco. This time things would be a little different – we would have Patrick (5) and Nicholas (3) in tow. Paddy would start school, so there would be no taking random days off and travelling on a whim. Also, we weren’t destined for sunny Florida, but the small town of Leavenworth in the Midwest of the US…..corn country, and Fiona has a weird phobia of cornfields. Fort Leavenworth would be our home for the next two years.
The whole family was pretty keen to head to the US after a challenging year which was dominated by the drudgery of Command and Staff College. However, the upside was the making of new friends who helped see us off in a pretty epic farewell party (by seeing off we mean drink all our homebrew and wine!!)
We had a pretty intense week of cleaning, packing and throwing crap out which was made all the more enjoyable by a spewy-pooey bug which worked it’s way through the house. Both sets of Grandparents copped it, and Nick managed
to throw up all over our lounge room carpet – the smell of vomit will now forever remind me of packing and removalists. However, it was Paddy’s effort which took the cake – no longer than 48 hours after having our mattress cleaned and sterilized to put in storage, the poor little bloke unleashed a technicolour dream yawn all over it. Until that point, I had no idea how absorbent memory foam is.
With that behind us we arrived at the airport very excited to travel on a brand new A380 which was servicing our route. Needless to say, the 1970’s A300 which greeted us at the gate was a little bit of a let down. However, business class had been decked out with bed-seats and all the modern day comforts. The kids absolutely loved it – they watched movies until their eyeballs were hanging out of their heads and we finally made them turn off the TV’s and have a sleep. Mum and Dad enjoyed a couple of vinos before catching some sleep and we arrived in San Fran before we new it.
We were fortunate enough to have two days rest in
San Fran to adapt to the time zone differences and recover from the flight. After dropping our five metric tons of luggage at the hotel we wandered to the Fisherman’s Wharf area of the city. The kids enjoyed barking at the seals and were fascinated by Alcatraz. It was pouring rain on our second day in the city so we decided to enjoy a classic American breakfast braving the conditions. Really bad coffee, giant portions, and cheese that is a strange shade of orange…..yup, we were back in America. We jumped a taxi to avoid the rain and headed to the Discovertorium, and huge science museum designed for kids and adults alike which is housed in one of San Francisco’s old wharfs. It was very similar to Canberra’s Questacon, but much better and much bigger. We explored the Discovertorium for the entire day and really only saw just over half of it, but it served it’s purpose and the kids soon passed out in the stroller, exhausted from a day of discovery and also the flights. That night we got our American on and heading to the Rainforest Café, a giant eatery full of animatronic animals that roared, growled and
I'm not Durnk...hic....
Sorry Katie - this is actually the best one we could find! howled at us while we ate our dinner. Super cheesy, but the kids loved it!
The following morning we jumped in the taxi and began the final leg of our journey – flights to Kansas City.
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