THURSDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2024

(Heathrow, UK – Ontario, CA)

[Editor’s note: Settle in. You know I always write a lot on the first day, and this unlikely to be an exception to the rule.]

“Is it morning yet?”, said a voice next to me. “Yes, the alarm is about to go off”, I confirmed and, one minute later, the alarm duly obliged and announced that the day had officially started.

It was 7.30am, which doesn’t sound too unreasonable at face value, except that due to our arrival time, it meant I’d had just under 5.5 hours sleep. As a ‘minimum-8-hours’ kind of person, I was still feeling tired. Still… after I’d showered I uttered, for the first time this trip, some encouragement to Andrew to rise and shine, “Up and at ‘em, things to do, places to go, hikes to be hiked”, even if that did only mean the 15 minute wander back through the subway tunnels to Terminal 3.

After we’d made our way through the tunnels, we emerged into daylight, and what passes for fresh air at an international airport, under blue skies. It looked like a beautiful morning. Just over two hours to departure. We didn’t loiter and headed into the terminal, where we discovered a surprisingly long queue for Upper Class bag drop. Nevertheless, once we’d deposited the bags, we took the lift to the special security line (much quicker) and were soon in the Virgin lounge. 

It seemed busy, but once we made our way to the far end there were plenty of seats, it was much quieter, and a fair bit cooler. Perfect. Breakfast was ordered via a QR code at the table and was very tasty. It’s a shame that, just half an hour after we got there, our flight was announced as boarding. Mind you, I’m glad I didn’t get up any earlier, and I suppose it reduced the hanging around time that is a frequent part of travel. 

Once on board we had a drink and settled into the space. And a lovely space it is too. This plane configuration provides a mini suite for your enjoyment… it even has a door. The only downside prior to take off was that the onboard aux power unit had failed, meaning the air con was at reduced levels and it was quite toasty, but this would rectify itself once we had main engine start. In the interim, I closed the blinds against the sun and went into ‘cave mode’ in the subdued purple light of all Virgin aircraft.

Engine start and push back came at 1051, accompanied by the blessed relief of truly cool air, and we left gate 327 behind. It felt as though we used a lot of runway to get up to speed, but we were wheels up at 1111, in an easterly direction, before turning west for the allegedly 10hrs and 35 minutes it would take to get to LAX. Our route took us over the Pennines and not far from Auntie’s house (we think), by which time there were some interesting cloud patterns.

[Editor’s note: apparently we did indeed pass overhead Auntie, and here is the photo to prove it!]

About an hour into the flight they started serving a multi course meal, which was not only filling but helped pass the time in a leisurely manner. At some point during the meal I noticed land approaching. Soon there were views of Iceland’s snow-capped mountains, which I was very excited about, until the clouds covered them over.

The clouds cleared as we crossed the ocean again, and forty minutes later I spied an iceberg…and then Greenland came into view with its mountains, glaciers, crevasses, and stunning scenery, highlighted by the lower angle of the sun at this time of year and this latitude. The cloud again built up as we crossed further overland. There was a brief bit of snowy landscapes as we crossed over Canadian soil, but it was soon cloudy. For hours.

After two movies I had a bit of a nap, or at least a doze, for an hour. It was still cloudy. The clouds fortuitously faded away as we crossed Montana towards Yellowstone and the Rockies Mountains, and again near the Great Salt Lake, so that we could see Salt Lake City and Antelope Island that we visited six years ago. We saw the red rocks near St George (more of those in a few days), but then high level cloud resulted in a hazy view as we started our descent across the Nevada desert for California. We routed north of Twentynine Palms (more of that in a couple of weeks), before heading just south of west for a “low visibility landing” (or IMC, to us pilots). I am thrilled that the gaps in the clouds occurred at all the exciting scenic points en route. It seemed fairly easy to see the ground and I wondered why the instrument conditions, but once we’d landed, it was apparent that there was ground fog obscuring the runway and taxiways.

Off the plane, and we got through immigration ok, after lengthy questions about where we hiking, were we going to Zion, and had we done Angels Landing. Not sure if these questions were to see if we really did do the things we said, or if we got the only LA immigration officer who liked hiking in Utah. Our luggage soon appeared and, once I’d correctly interpreted the airport map and located our shuttle stop, we went to Alamo to get our car. There was no choice involved, which kept things simple, as we were allocated a vehicle. A big vehicle. A very big vehicle. We had a momentary delay while we figured out how to put the back row of seats down to accommodate the cases, and then we were on our way. 

I’d left the choice of tonight’s hotel until now, when we could see what the time was and how we felt. This course of action was definitely not approved by the immigration officer, who thought it a bad idea because we might not get a hotel…personally, I wasn’t worried about that, as I’d checked and there was plenty of availability, it just depended how far we wanted to drive tonight. Based on traffic, I picked a hotel a mere 50 miles away, but 2.5 hours drive time… We only missed one turn, but which resulted in going around the block, sadly encountering crazy parents randomly stopping in the road to pick up children from the local school. 

We decided to stop for dinner along the way, so I diverted us to a conveniently located Denny’s, then it was back on our way to the hotel. An hour later (it was still ridiculously busy) we arrived at the Holiday Inn Ontario Airport, and we’re now having post travel showers before,most likely, going for a drink in the bar and then heading to bed. After all, we need to be up and at ‘em again tomorrow…