
D9 Caterpillar digging down to the opal level at John Dunstan's Lambina opal mine during our 2000 opal buying trip to Australia.
6/10/2000 Day started early 5:00 A.M. getting mom and dad downtown for the Strawberry Festival. On arriving back home, we noticed water leaking out from under the front step (from the sprinkler system)—oh no!! Put our plumber and good friend, Tom Staycheff, in charge of repairs while we are gone. Steve took our inventory of opals to Tom’s for safe keeping while in Australia and came home with radiator fluid leaking under the car. Head gasket? Radiator hose? We decided to wait till we returned from the trip before tackling the car.
Tied up our tomatoe plants and got red stain, from the new landscaping timbers, all over our clothes. Settled for a glass of ice tea on the deck….Steve sat on a very wet cushion! Changed clothes again.
Do we dare fly to Australia today?
Boarded the 1:00PM Delta flight to Salt Lake City…good flight and on time. Easy connection to LA…Delta again. Another good flight and on time. We had a 7 hour lay over in LA Looking for Air New Zealand gates—told to go to terminal 2- a ½ hour walk. Got there, and told to go to terminal 6-where we had just come from. United handles Air New Zealand international flights. Back we went- -was sunny and breezy—I guess a very good day for a walk. Supper at a Mexican place in the airport. Passed the time reading and playing cribbage. Boarded a very crowded plane at 10:05 P.M. 10 seats across _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ We got the center 2. Very cramped…I should have avoided drinking that last cup of coffee. Off we go! 14 ½ hour flight to Melbourne Australia!
Missed the 11th of June crossing the international date line. Arrived in Melbourne Australia at 6:20 A.M. on the morning of the 12th.