Well, it's about 6 hours or so before we head off to the Perth airport for our return trip to the States. Jonnene and I have spent most of the afternoon trying to fit everything into our bags and make the weight requirements for travel on dem big aeroplanes. International travel allows us 70 pounds per piece of check-in luggage while US domestic air only allows 50 pounds per piece. That can leave you with a problem...mainly that 50 pounds is our limit no matter what. So we have carefully packed and weighed our bags over and over. Then we checked the rules for both Qantas and Continental regarding luggage restrictions and limits. Here what we came up with:
We're going to bring an extra check-in bag, one of Jonnene's that she left here a couple of years ago. Basically, we're going to be over the 50 lb per bag limit with the two bags we have now, plus all the stuff crammed into our carry-on bags. What to do? There's no problem with the Perth to Los Angeles flights since they allow up to 70 lb per bag and two bags per person (the rule's changed but after we had already bought our tickets, so we're gold). But on the LAX to Alexandria flights we'd be charged $50 per overweight bag...$100 total...not good. But on those domestic flights, we'd be charged $25 for an extra bag. Hmmmmmm. We decided to bring the extra bag and save $75 while relieving the weight of our other bags. Yeah, it's more to carry but we're bringing a lot of stuff back. Things like the tons of souvenirs we got for ourselves and others, things that Jonnene had to leave behind when she moved here 23 months ago. A couple of wedding gifts, bike carrier towers that'll fit her Rav-4 (score!), things like that.
We also had some clothes with us that we never wore....and that was after we had culled down the clothes we thought we'd need before we left! But I now have more clothes to pack since I bought some items to deal with the cooler weather here that we weren't expecting. Anyway, the next trip we'll bring even less clothing with us as long as we have washing facilities somewhere to use. We could get down to 20 pounds a bag...and maybe on just one bag...if we do it right!
Another bonus for the return trip....the weather in Louisiana this weekend will be almost like what it's been in Perth this past week, nice and warmer. They've had snow in Louisiana this week and it's been freezing but it'll change as we return so that'll be nice.
Yeah, the last few days have been a rush. Thursday was probably our busiest. Errands to run that morning, lunch with Steph and Tim (she sang at our wedding), met a friend of Jonnene's, Elena, for a half hour at a nearby mall, picked up nephew AJ from school and took him to Raelene's house, dropped in on Jonnene's old next-door neighbor Shirley, and then buzzed over to see Brett and cousin Kim for the evening before woofing down a quicky Red Rooster meal for me! Today we went to a pilates class at 6 in the morning (I'll feel that by tomorrow), had breakfast with some of the triathlon group, ran errands, and now packing. Later we'll see Christine and Eddy...Christine and Jonnene used to walk their dogs together...and their dog, Ben, then we'll have the family over at Raelene's for a good-bye dinner before we head off for the airport.
What do you think? Busy enough? I'll try to post again when we get to Melbourne tomorrow morning.
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