USA Trip (12th Sep - 8th Oct) - Day 1

Having been back in Australia we were keen to get travelling again and having sold Alana's apartment we were able to start planning.

Our initial thought was to head back to Sweden, but we then pivoted to consider the USA. It had been a long time since we had seen our American family and we had previously discussed visiting Los Angeles, so November last year I started planning.

Along the way we ended up talking with my sister and nephew who had not had a chance to meet the US family before, and they decided to join us.  My dad and stepmum also organized flights to Ohio and transport to Michigan to meet with the family.  What started as a small trip for the five of us ended up exploding into a massive, planned family reunion and a month of travel.

I spent the next few months planning out what we could do and where we could go, and before we knew it, it was September 2026 and the trip was on us.  

The weeks leading up to the trip were filled with rugby - hosting rugby finals, presentation nights and Grand Final games, and so the actual date snuck up on us.

Because of booking at different times, my sister, Tara, and my nephew, Brett, flew out a different flight. They were going to have a couple of relaxing days in LA while we flew a little later in the day.

We arrived at the airport nice and early for our 2pm flight and the first leg to Brisbane went by pretty quickly (2.5hrs).  We then had a couple of hours in Brisbane before we were due to fly out to LA. Unfortunately, the airport was under renovations, so our only food option was McDonalds (which we'd had for lunch at Adelaide Airport before we left).

Then we had a 13.5hr flight to LAX airport:

Flying Adelaide to Brisbane

Our plane getting loaded in Brisbane

About to land in LA

Arriving in LA

We arrived in LA and once we collected our bags we took the bus to the car hire yard. There were about 10 people in line in front of us but, despite there being about 15 desks for Budget/Avis, there was only one worker issuing cars. After an hour and half we finally got the keys to our car and drove out to our hotel in Anaheim.

Once we'd checked in, we headed out to get some dinner and heard approaching police sirens. Suddenly two police cars raced into the parking lot and an office jumped out and started searching the bushes with a torch. The hotel owner told us to go back and lock ourselves in our rooms, but let us leave out the other side of the carpark. As we walked across the road to Taco Bell, an additional 4 police cars turned up, followed by a fire truck and an ambulance. Taco Bell locked the doors once we were inside, but no-one seemed overly concerned or to know what was going on. We never found out what the issue was and it was still going when we finished dinner, so we decided to walk down to the Anaheim Convention Center where Blizzcon was being held (but had closed for the day). We took some pics and worked out where we would be going the next day and then headed back to the hotel. By the time we returned the police incident had cleared and we all crashed out pretty quickly.