Wild West road trip - day 1 - Travel day

[TrueBlue]

Hi and welcome to the first day of our trip report. We just arrived home a couple of days ago from our amazing road trip which included Yosemite, Lone Pine, Furnace Creek (Death Valley), Las Vegas, Zion National Park, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon and back to Vegas.

Here goes...

Day 1 - 28th June - Travel from Edinburgh to San Francisco

We had an early start today as the first part of our flight was flying from Edinburgh - Newark. Our United Airlines flight was due to leave at 9.30am which meant we had to leave our house at 6.30am.

I woke up 5.30am, had a quick cuppa the went up and woke up our 14 year old son Scott. My hubby Ramsay got up at the same time as me.

I had a quick scan through facebook, packed the last minute bits like hair straightners, lap top etc. Loaded the car and we were soon on our way to the airport. I was so excited but also quite nervous too. I always get that way on travel day. I tend to settle down once we've checked in, got rid of our luggage, through security and sitting in Wetherspoons with a cuppa and a cooked breakfast in front of me.

After breakfast we headed towards our gate. Everything was going very smooth so far and our flight was on time - result!

Before long we were getting invited to board our flight. They boarded first and business class then it was our turn. We headed towards the staff who were checking the boarding passes and passports just before you enter the walkway when all the lights went out in the airport. Everyone was looking at each other not knowing what to think. It then got announced that there was a power cut.

The staff couldn't scan our boarding passes so everything came to a standstill. 10 mins later they said they could check everything manually and we were all allowed to board the flight.

Half an hour later we were still sitting on the flight at the gate. They were waiting on a team to come and remove the walkway manually as the power cut had knocked everything out. We got on our way a short time later and I later learned we were one of the lucky ones and the whole airport ended up in chaos for a good few hours.

Our flight was smooth enough. We were soon flying over Greenland. I love flying over here and looking down at all the snow (knowing i'm heading to the sun )

I watch the movie Cars and then the live flight map. The staff came round with our meals and drinks and before too long we were coming into land in Newark.

We had made up a good bit of time and only landed about 10 mins later than planned.

Our next flight to San Francisco left on time at 3pm. It was a 6 hour flight and with the time difference we were due to land in San Fran at 1800 local time.

We landed on time and walked right out due to us going through passport control in Newark (which took all of 5 mins as there was no queue). We collected our luggage, headed to Avis to pick up our car and we were on our way to our hotel in no time.

We checked into Days Inn San Francisco Airport a short time later. Everything had gone so smoothly. Our room was comfortable enough and we soon headed out in search of food. There was a pizza place across the road so we just headed there.

We were back at our hotel room by 9pm and watched a bit of tv before falling asleep as we had now been on the go for more than 24 hours.

Tomorrow we are heading straight to Yosemite National Park... Keep tuned

Thank you for following

[jocat]

Sound a fairly smooth travel day. You did well to be up for 24 hours - I find it so difficult.

Looking forward to the next instalment.

[tocpe321]

Good travel day, other than the power cut.

Thanks for posting.

[Leia Organa]

Sounds like a fairly smooth if long travel day. Looking forward to the rest of the trip.

[Lovesholidays]

Thanks for posting looking forward to all the other instalments

[KarenG]

Great photo from the plane and a nice smooth travel day - lucky you missed the chaos at Edinburgh given how long your day was anyway! Looking forward to more

[Melbatb]

That was a long day! Good decision to stay close to the airport!

[christybell]

Great travel day, sound like a good route and pretty stress free (glad you escaped the chaos of the powercut! )

[orlandosgr8]

Other than the power cut it sounds like you had a good travel day

[Guest]

Good travel day. That's the way to start things. It's always fun when airports have to switch to pen and paper. Happened to us in St.Lucia because of the BA computer crash.