Double Sunrise ...

I'm home! And, boy am I glad I got here. Things sort of went South, but until then, things were going swimmingly.

When I checked in online, I changed the seat I was in to a aisle in the middle four seat section.

Qantas announces that you must stay in your assigned seat at take off, but after we are in the air - it is a free for all. Once they mentioned this was to keep the plane 'balanced' but even stupid 'ole me knows that is bull-pucky - it is if the plane goes down - they know where the bodies were seated ...

I had the entire row to myself (only one of a few like that and I could see a couple staring at it. Why I don't know - they were in perfectly good seats. I haven't mentioned up until now, but morphine makes you nauseous, and I was really hoping to lay down because my stomach was not very settled. S0 - I did my evil 'get up as the wheels are just lifting off the ground and plunk my backpack on the end seat'. I haven't had anyone come and just move my luggage to get a seat - so I knew I was home free.

As soon as the seat belt sign was turned off, I grabbed three of the four pillows on my row an lay down - thus marking my territory:

I did rather well, since I lay down most of the flight. Took some shots as the sun was setting on Thursday (we had not crossed the date line yet ...):

Dang window and frost sort of ruined the upper left corner - but trust me, it was a beautiful sight to behold:

And then a treat for me. TWO sunrises on Thursday. How often does that happen? My 5:30 sunrise at the apartment as I was getting up (and being foul mouthed):

Then, as we were approaching LA (having now crossed the date line and gone 'back in time') photographed the Thursday morning sunrise out a window of a abandoned seat:

I SO should have just stayed in that seat until we landed. For some reason we came in low and turned North, so out the window was a sunrise with mountains, and then the most beautiful sunrise with downtown LA - all glowing pink and would have made a fantastic photo. I am still kicking myself.

Immigration and Customs were unusually crowded so I hunkered down and waited - telling myself that if I missed my flight, I missed my flight. Snapped this photo moments before I realized that there was a serious problem at LAX:

The line to get through security Disney-like as it snaked back and forth, then outside the building. Probably 4 times longer than I had ever seen it. The harried workers were just getting us in place with no explanation, but I was lucky enough to be standing by this news reporter and his camera man as he reported what the problem was.

A man had breached the security line - jumping over the barricade, running through the metal detector - something - that was not reported - just that he has breached the security area and had melted into the crowd. And LAX was shut down.

Yeah - closed. No flights taking off, no one in, no one out. This was earlier than when I had arrived, but explained the lines. It was chaos, mobs of frustrated travellers and too few harried workers. The reported said that there were more than 1000 people in the line I was waiting in to clear security. Very disheartening!

My flight was delayed, but only by a little bit - they were very efficient in getting things up and going again, so not too bad.

But, man - was I glad to see this sight as my friend rounded the bend to my Texas home:

Of course, until I went in and discovered that a college boy had spent spring break there and had not done a stellar job of keeping things in great shape (but not REAL bad, I just love coming home to a spanking clean home - one less thing to do).


We passed wildflowers on the way home and now I feel I HAVE to go out and take some photos of flowers - just in case they all spontaneously die in the next couple of days - so I really should be in bed - but that jet lag thing sort of kicked in and it is three in the afternoon 'my time'.

Ah, well, off to bed and try to get some sleep. Hoping for dreams of fields of bluebonnets and not airport fiasco's - but no guarantees!