From there to here...

As my dad pointed out, we didn't update our blog or leave any closing remarks before we left, so for those of you who want closure, here it is. We spent the last few days in town cleaning, packing, selling off the remainder of our stuff (most of it to a grateful American just beginning her year and a half adventure in Oz- who knows how grateful she is now after realizing all of the crap we unloaded on her- good news is we did tour her around a bit before we left), and visiting our favorite spots for the last time. The whole experience was pretty surreal and hard to put into words. I took a lot of pictures of everything, which I think was my way of trying to hold on to things. Mark, on the other hand, accepted and even embraced the idea of moving on, though I don't think it really hit him until we set our keys on the counter and closed the door of our apartment for the last time. We flew out at 6 am, so we decided to just spend the night at the airport rather than try to catch the bus from our apartment at 3 am or pay 120 AUD for a hotel room nearby. We left our apartment around 9-10 pm Wednesday night, dropped off our rental van, arrived at the airport around 11 pm, stacked our luggage on one of those push carts (all 110 kilos/220 lbs of it), and then passed the time reading, playing games, showering, etc. At 3:30 am we wheeled our luggage to the ticket counter and prayed that we wouldn't have to pay an arm and leg to get it home. Fortunately because of when we booked our tickets, we had a greater baggage allowance. Luckily, we pushed the limits of that allowance without going over! After a brief sleep, we boarded our plane and headed to Brisbane. We had a short layover in Brisbane and then took off to LA. When we got to LA we found a place for breakfast/lunch, which anybody who has spent any time in LAX knows is quite a task, and then I took a nap until we left for Seattle. I have no idea what Mark did while I napped because I was pretty much dead to the world for a couple of hours. I do know at one point he grabbed his passport and boarding pass from the Qantas pouch hanging around my neck and I didn't even budge. From LA we flew to Seattle where our friend Karl picked us up and took us back to his place for dinner. I can't even begin to explain how nice it was to leave the airport and step outside in the fresh air. Then it was back to the airport for our final leg to Billings. We arrived in Billings at 11:30 pm, after what we calculated to be 43 hours of travel- needless to say we were exhausted!!! Fortunately we had a really good night of sleep in a comfortable bed on Friday, but even that wasn't enough to make up for all of the sleep we lost. I have to admit that I was pretty stupid on Friday- those who know me well know that I don't function well on little sleep. It started in the morning when I basically tore apart all of our luggage looking for some of my toiletries that I later remembered throwing away in Melbourne. Then I really struggled reading the menu at lunch, it was just a bunch of words and none of it was making sense (though in my defense, the Staggering Ox menu really is a bunch of words that probably don't make much sense). A little while later I nearly left my favorite water bottle at City Brew (an afternoon caffeine boost was necessary if I was to make it through the day) and then even accused the guy behind the counter of hiding it from me only to find it hanging from my finger. I could go on and on, but I think I've succeeded in getting my point across. The good news is that I got a little more sleep last night and was feeling much better (and smarter) today. The bad news is that my mind was clear enough to start thinking about all of the stuff that we have to do in the next few weeks to resettle into our US lives- a bit overwhelming, but sure to be yet another adventure!