Glenda has left the building heading for Oz

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Well the time has come for all good things to come to an end - I took Glenda to the airport this afternoon to commence her journey back home.

From when she flies out of Austin to the time she arrives in Australia will be approximately 24 hours in total travel time - a 4 hour flight to San Francisco then around a 5 hour wait for the Qantas flight to Australia which takes a bit over 14.5 hours. She loses a day on the return flight - leaving here in Austin at 2:30pm on Saturday and arriving into Sydney at around 8:30am Monday morning.

We did have one small hiccup - in America the airlines charge for each checked bag so I had paid the $25 on-line fee for her one suitcase. After it was packed with her recent purchases it was bulging at the seams. Sure enough her bag was over-weight when we got to the airport and they wanted to charge $200 for the excess!!! (it only cost $200 for the return ticket from San Francisco to Austin).

When I travel back to Australia in 3 weeks I am allowed to check 2 suitcases for free, so we emptied her bag down to the required 23kg weight and I brought her excess stuff back to the hotel with me - check out the photo of me with the amount of excess she had - we had to borrow a plastic bag off the airline for me to carry it!

It certainly was time to send her back, otherwise we would need a cargo plane!

On the way to the airport we stopped in downtown Austin for lunch at a magnificent opulent Hotel called "The Driskill" which was built by a cattle baron back in the late 1800's. The food was very good although one interesting thing we have found in some eateries - when you order a hamburger you also order how you want it done - rare, medium or well done.

We then walked around the hotel admiring the furniture and the Victorian style architecture.

We had a nice Texas meal last night at a restaurant called the "County Line" - it overlooks a creek and is low enough down so the snow which fell the previous night was still on the rocks. It was very pretty and the ribs were delicious.

Speaking of the snow - I was fixin' to go into work early yesterday morning but had to wait till around 10am before driving to work verrry slowly as the roads were all covered in snow - a lot of folks stayed at home and there were a lot of vehicle accidents.

As Glenda said in her update yesterday I am off to a "Superbowl Sunday BBQ" tomorrow with a few workmates to watch the Green Bay Packers (from Wisconsin) play the Pittsburg Steelers in the gridiron grand final. The locals tell me that they don't really care who wins cause they do not like either team - Texas did not make it to the finals - so I am not sure who to root for.

I still have 3 weeks to go but from here on I start doing actual tech support work so it will get interesting.

cheers for now to y'all

Col

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Photos

Scratching the cows head
A Texas Longhorn at "The Driskill"

Sitting on the cows skin
A comfy lounge at "The Driskill".