7/12/01: We were off to the airport by 7:30 A.M. Our Qantas flight from Adelaide to Sydney was smooth and uneventful. The next leg of the flight is the long one (13 ½ hours), intermittently bumpy, loaded with 6th-8th graders, and a couple of elderly folks who were afflicted with horrible colds. We sat right behind them, but thankfully didn’t pick up their colds. Didn’t sleep nearly as much as we would have liked, but it’s very difficult to sleep on flights that leave in the afternoon. We arrived in L.A. on time, slid through customs easily, endured the layover (have already been up almost 24 hours), and were off to Salt Lake City. At this late we are kind of in a zombie state…not really awake, but not asleep either. Our flight late getting into Salt Lake and we just barely made the connection to Billings.
Arrived in Billings, home-safe and sound at 6:30 P.M. Last box of opals safely made it into Billings on 7/18…now we can relax. So next is the long job of photographing rough Australian opal and website updates begins in earnest. Brought some great opal home this year and the trip was less stressful and much more productive…loved the opal carving class in Coober Pedy! When we arrived home and tried to have our photos of Andamooka developed I found that our camera had broken when accidentally dropped. So there were no photographs of the Andamooka opal-fields. 🙁