Today we awoke to thunder, lightning, and torrential rain. Why does this always happen on flying day? And to top it off, it was a long weekend in Auckland.

Sooo… our flight wasn’t until 9.45pm, but we left Hamilton at 2pm, expecting a 3 hour hold-up on the motorway. Despite the weather and the long weekend, there were no hold-ups and we arrived in Auckland 1.5 hours later.

Thankfully we were able to check in early, so we found a quiet spot in the business class lounge.

We had a couple of drinks, and a bite to eat, then played a couple of hands of Monopoly deal.

Two hours later, the lounge got very busy, and we were joined by a couple of cool dudes. They pulled out their brand spanking new Monopoly deal, and placed it next to our scummy, dated, well used pack.

Next thing we’re playing a game together using their ‘dubious’ rules, and I just needed to point out that I won.

Anyway, we’re still sitting here… waiting… waiting…

S

We left Kingman this morning to drive back to Los Angeles for our flight. Normally it’s a 5 hour drive, but LA traffic can easily turn it into a 10 hour drive. So we left at 8am, just to be sure.

As it turns out, there was no traffic, and we got back at 1pm. Our flight isn’t until 10.30pm. So we headed down to Manhattan beach and had a stroll along the waterfront and out onto the pier.

We are now in the business class lounge (6 hours early) enjoying a beer.

We managed to get upgraded to business class again, and it made the check-in process so easy. We were fast-tracked through security and were able to check in early.

How did we manage to get upgraded to business class again? Well, AirNz has a one-up bidding system, where you can bid to get upgraded. When I was changing our flights, I asked two different AirNz staff members whether I could still do a one-up upgrade, and they both said it was too late, that if had to be booked 7 days in advance.

So I decided to try it online myself, but I didn’t have enough air-points to bid the minimum, as I had just used my points to renew Koru membership.

But I decided to go ahead and bid the minimum anyway. Next thing I know, our airpoints from London-LA are being added to our account. This doesn’t usually happen until we’ve flown all the way home. I said to Mike, I bet they’re going to upgrade us. Sure enough, they did. Woohoo.

Today the highlight was standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona, it was such a fine sight to see.

It’s my fault for complaining about the heat. This morning it chucked it down with rain and thunderstorms and the temperature dropped 36 degrees to 13 degrees and we had to put the heater on in the car. Then it cleared and the temperature was back up and it was humid as hell.

I’ve also found out my phone has been listening to my conversations . I’d asked Mike whatever had happened to Boy George. Next thing, Boy George is cropping up in an advert on Facebook.

Then another time I asked Mike if there was a Wal-Mart near by. Next thing Google sends a message to my phone showing me the nearest one. FREAKY!

I’ve now disabled microphone settings for all my apps except Skype, and it hasn’t happened since.

Road Kill Update:

We saw an armadillo! That brought on another bout of ‘Show me the way to Armadillo”

So we continue to drive.

Today we sang our way through Amarillo, except Marie didn’t wait for us, the cow.

But, we did see some Cadillacs planted in the ground in the middle of nowhere. Apparently it was done by an artist from San Francisco in the 70s. Now people are encouraged to add their own art.

There are cans of spray paint lying around, that you can use to add your touch. Some people offered me a can, but the wind was blowing so hard, I feared getting covered in it. So I just looked.

We are so sick of the food here, none of it is real. The food is either too salty, or too sweet. The hotel breakfasts are made from some sort of artificial, or powdered egg, and tastes disgusting. Even what appears to be ‘fresh’ fruit has added sugar.

The breakfast usually comes with some sort of processed spicy ham which immediately bloats my stomach.

This morning, however, my eyes lit up when I saw bacon. I love American bacon, So tasty and crispy. That is, if it’s cooked fresh. The hotel bacon tasted like salty cardboard. I’d seen some pre-cooked bacon in the supermarket, sitting on the shelves. It was probably that crap.

So I’m looking forward to coming home to some healthy eating.

Thursday 30th August

It’s been between 38 and 40 degrees every day since we’ve been here, and with the high humidity, it’s just been too hot to do anything during the day. So we drive in the comfort of our air-conditioned car.

We stopped off at a town called Millington, just outside of Memphis.Originally we didn’t think it was worth a detour, but then I found they had a winery there.

We drove up to the Old Millington Winery, which was a small place in the middle of nowhere. A old man with no teeth sat on the front porch with his dog.

As we got out of the car he said, ‘y’all have come a long way.’

Yikes, how did he know we were from NZ just by looking at us.

Turns out he’d seen the Californian plates on our car and assumed that was where we were from.

Anyway, the lady who served us was very nice. They have free wine tastings so we tried a red wine and a port, both were delicious. The only other wines they sold were sweet whites, and we figured we wouldn’t like them.

The lady told us about a man from Australia who had emailed a few years back, wanting a box shipped out based on the name only, (his last name was Millington). I was pretty sure this was my brother John, as he told me about that he tried to buy wine from here a while ago.

Anyway, the lady packaged up a few bottles for us, and even threw in a free Old Millington branded wine glass. Totally worth a visit.

Greensburg, Kentucky

It was just a two hour drive from Nashville to Greensburg, Kentucky, where we spent a couple of days catching up with Ro and Larry, (Mikes sister and brother-in-law) and Mel (Mike’s niece,)

Greensburg is a quaint little town with a river running through it. We stayed in a cabin on the river. It was a convenient location, but I thought it smelled of wee, and Mike thought it smelled of wet dog. Both smells were pretty gross.

It was good catching up though. It had been ten years since we last visited, so we’ll try and not leave it as long next time. Now that we know we can fly direct to Nashville from London, it is much easier.

Historic courthouse in Greensburg.

Today seemed to just be a driving day. We saw a racoon roadkill and possibly a road runner.

We are now in Arkansas. We tried to buy beer at the supermarket back in Texas but the wouldn’t let us. You can’t buy beer before 12 noon on a Sunday. Texas law!

We ate bbq again for dinner, this time brisket and mac and cheese.