Australian Holiday - From Cairns Home - 3 Nov 2006

Brian upheld his perfect record of timely wakeup calls at 4:30 AM. We showered, finished packing, had some breakfast, sadly said goodbye to Sarah, and headed for the airport and our 6:50 AM flight to Sydney. Brian dropped us off at the international terminal where we said our farewell. This was hard, but eased by the knowledge that Brian and Sarah will be back in the States for Christmas.

It took us 36 hours to make our way from Cairns to Sydney to Los Angeles to Indianapolis to Detroit to Grand Rapids: 25 hours flying time and 11 hours in airports. Our flight out of Sydney was late due to a labor dispute (the ground crew wouldn’t deliver the 747 to the gate), and we thought we would miss our flight out of LAX. However, we collected our bags, hoofed it from the international terminal to the Northwest departure terminal, and cleared check in and security with about five minutes to spare.

We arrived in Grand Rapids at 12:30 AM (about an hour late) and Steve picked us up. It was great to get home again, where Tom, Suz, Steve, Kate, John, Danny and Liz had survived our two week absence with no problem. We were very grateful for God’s care of us and our kids as we enjoyed this wonderful trip.

Recovery from jet lag and travel fatigue was not easy, but as I (Dan) write this on December 3, 2006, we are about back to normal.

Thanks to Brian and Sarah for being such excellent hosts. Seeing Australia was great, but sharing it with them made it pure delight.