San Francisco on the Way to Perth

 

March 6 - Up at 5 AM and all packed, we left our home and Bleu to begin our month long trip from RSW. Joanne drove with Stan in the front seat and Richard in the back. Stan and Joanne talked the whole way to the airport. At the airport we said goodbye to Stan and handed him Joanne's keys so that he could drive my car back to our house.

Stan and Pam, FF friends from Western Michigan, will house-sit our home and care for Bleu while we are gone.

Stan snapped a photo of us at RSW 

Joanne's boarding pass for the final leg of our trip to Perth on Singapore Airlines did not print. The United agent assured us this wouldn't be a problem. We've been down this road before, so I was not reassured.

Over our long layover in San Francisco, we “chatted” and spoke with United and Singapore Airlines representatives for hours the result being there was nothing United could do. Joanne would need to check-in for the flight to Perth with Singapore Airlines before a boarding pass could be printed. Her boarding pass could not be printed at the gate. I had my doubts. We would have one and half hours in Singapore to fix the problem if our flight from SFO was on-time. It wasn't!

We rode the BART train to Montgomery Station in the city and walked a few blocks on a beautiful afternoon to the Modern Art Museum. Some of the works we liked appear here.

                    At the Museum on a Bright if Chilly Afternoon

Joan Brown, a local artist, painted the three above. A number of her works featured cats!

We left late cutting layover time in Singapore to about 30 minutes. While in the air I “chatted” with a Untied rep as we have free WiFi via T Mobile for text while in flight. He saved us seats on a Singapore Airlines flight that would leave much later getting us into Perth around midnight but did not rebook us right away.

March 7 - Day 2 vanished in flight. The head steward promised he would give it back to us if we flew back to San Francisco with him.  

March 8 - As our flight approached Singapore, the head steward, holding a text in his hand, told us that they were aware of our problem. He asked that everyone without a short connection remain seated so that we and few others could get off first. Of course, he was ignored but we still got off first. A rep met us as we entered the terminal with directions to the Singapore Airlines gate. Of course, it was at the other end of the terminal. We made it with two minutes to spare and boarded the plane bound for Perth!

Our bags ,as expected, didn't make the flight. They did however arrive on the next flight. Singapore Airlines arranged for a baggage service to deliver our bags to our hosts, Collin and Linda, home. All we had to do was provide contact information. I gave them the wrong house number.

Linda and Collin met us at the airport. After dinner and a couple of glasses of wine we stumbled into bed.

March 9 – On our way to the beach, a call from the delivery service driver to Collin revealed that we had provided the delivery service with the wrong house number, 28 instead of 29. Not a problem, Collin sent the delivery guy across the street to his house where his granddaughter waited to receive our bags. 

All is good.  To be continued.