August 6, 2016
As has become a
norm, Mark was browsing slickdeals on a busy Saturday morning in April and came
across airfare that was too good to pass up- Atlanta to Sydney for $586 round
trip per person on United. We found 16 days in August that would work with our
hectic schedule and pushed the "book it" button. In comparison- these
tickets typically cost $1600 and up per person. Given we have the companion
pass on Southwest, when a fare sale to Atlanta popped up we booked those
tickets for about 10,000 miles and we were good to go.
For those not
following our hectic year, we've spent most of our free time for the past 4
months turning Mark's Grandma's house into a successful short term rental
property starting in July with Cleveland hosting the RNC. This meant that until
mid-July we largely ignored the fact that we had a monumental trip quickly
approaching. Needless to say, the end of July was a flurry of activity
researching and booking airfare, lodging and activities.
One other thing that
has become a norm is travelling with our nieces and nephews. In 2011 we traveled in Western Europe with
Alex, then four years ago we went to the Olympics in London followed by Eastern
Europe with Abbey, and this turned out to be Kayleigh's turn. She has been
living in Taiwan for the past couple years and has just finished her masters
degree! This was the perfect time to meet up with her in Australia to see what
kind of trouble we can find.
We embarked on our
journey Saturday afternoon after enjoying a beer with pretzel bites and wings
at Akron/Canton's Great Lakes Brewery. We flew southwest to Atlanta, claimed
our bags, rechecked them on United and went through security again. We had a four
hour layover and found a nice restaurant/bookstore in Terminal B right by the
center. The food, drinks, and dessert were fabulous by airport food standards,
and the ambiance was almost enough to make a person forget they were in the
middle of the busiest airport in the world.
We flew to San
Francisco and used that time to plan our Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
activities. A quick hour layover later, and we were on our way to Sydney! All
of Mark's business travel has paid off giving him United status so we were
upgraded to Economy Plus for the trip, and had a row of 3 seats to ourselves.
That made the fourteen hour flight reasonably comfortable.
Simultaneously,
Kayleigh left Taipei on Sunday afternoon her time, and made the journey via Kuala Lumpur to Sydney.