It was well worth staying up to get all the last minute things done. It meant the wait for the taxi was much more relaxed than last year. In the final minutes before leaving home we gave Connor a letter that was written for him by his hero, Adelaide Adrenaline and Australian ice hockey player, Josh Harding. While Connor didn't say much you could see it clearly meant a lot to him that Josh had taken the time to write him a personal letter sharing his experiences and memories of Friendship Games and giving Connor some key advice.
The ride to the airport was a breeze as there isn't a lot of traffic around at 3am. This of course meant we were the first to arrive at Adelaide Airport. And when I say the first to arrive, I don't just mean amongst the team, I mean the first to arrive. We were so early that we couldn't even enter the airport building and instead had to sit outside and wait in the new garden area.
When it was finally time to enter the building we waited for everyone else to arrive and then checked it. Check in was a breeze with our luggage and boarding passes done from Adelaide to Melbourne, Melbourne to LA, and LA to Vancouver. Security checks were also fine - I was chosen for a random explosives check.
Following time for a quick hot chocolate we boarded the plane for our first flight. We were all very excited to finally be on our way. The first hint that Friendship Games may be a possibility for Connor one day came 6 years ago...its been a long time in the making but it is finally here at last!!!
The first flight was short and uneventful. I battled Connor feverishly at Battleship and came out the victor - although he will tell you otherwise. We also got to see the most magnificent sunrise.
In Melbourne, after another random explosives check, we passed through Immigration and Customs and headed to our boarding gate where we met up with the 4 players from Victoria who are also on the team. Now that we finally had the whole team together we took the opportunity for a quick team photo and a family shot before take off.
It was soon time to board the enormous Qantas A380 to Los Angeles. 14+ hours of television, movies and games to be watched and played...and time for eating a range of foods and getting some sleep. The flight was relatively uneventful for us. We were to find out later that it wasn't so uneventful for one of the other boys of the team though who unfortunately became very ill on the plane and needed medical attention.
Once we landed in LA we all found ourselves stuck in enormous queues that seemed to take forever to move as we tried to get through US Immigration. We had to go through the usual process of questions, finger printing and photo even though we were only transiting the US on our way to Vancouver. Once we cleared Immigration, collected our bags, cleared Customs we then checked out bags back in and walked to the new terminal ready for more security checks, complete with shoe removal, before then having our passports verified to be able to board the next flight to Vancouver. While we were fine, unfortunately one family had some difficulties and so while their son made the flight with the team they missed it and would have to wait 5-6 hours for the next flight.
The final flight to Vancouver was turbulent but the views over Yosemite National Park and the many snow covered mountains was beautiful. Not that David and the boys would know as they slept their way through most of the flight. So after 25 hours we had finally reached Vancouver. Now all that remained was driving from Vancouver to Aldergrove. How hard could that be after very little sleep in the past 48 hours?
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