A chilly Cape Town winter's morning saw our departure on Saturday, 16th June
Bye-bye, Table Mountain,
Bye-bye!
This was a different view of Milner Peak Ridge, where we had climbed with Andi at the end of October 2006
and there was still a smidgin of snow on the Matroosberg
I found the aerial views of irrigated lands fascinating - there are some cool "landscape designers" out there
Twenty eight and a half hours, three airports and two different airlines afforded us a first "stolen" glimpse of Manhattan - we did not have window seats, so had to lean across the guy next to us for these shots
With about five hours to spare before our connecting flight to Salt Lake City, we decided we had to see something more of New York, than Terminals 2 and 3 at JFK, so we ventured forth on the Subway
We took the Subway to where the action is - Times Square and Broadway
The aspiration for many dancers...
and there was plenty of action on Times Square
In Times Square, everyone takes pictures....
"I'll take one of you, if you take one of us.... "
Then we encountered our first obstacle... The flight to Salt Lake City had been cancelled. Our luggage was well underway already, but we had to spend the night in JFK. Delta Airlines was able to book us on a flight via Baltimore the following day, and would accommodate us at their expense for the night at one of the Airport hotels.
This caused us a little stress, as we didn't have a cellphone number for Andi, who had travelled to Salt Lake City in order to be there to meet us on arrival and take us to Provo, so we decided to head for the hotel and muster all our resources to get a message to Andi. Luckily there was high speed WiFi in our room, and through the wonders of modern technology and a network of helpful friends, we were eventually able to get hold of Andi on a Skype call to let her know of our amended itinerary.
Therefore on Monday, after being subjected to a thorough search at airport security, including being patted down, and with "sniffer pads" passed over our shoes and carry-on luggage, we eventually boarded our flight 45 minutes later than scheduled. With barely two hours between arrival and departure for our connecting flight, things were a little tense, especially when we still dallied about another half hour on the runway, before finally taking off. We landed with scarcely 15 minutes to take off, and as soon as we were allowed off (apparently luggage must be removed before passengers can deplane), six of us sprinted across the tarmac, into the airport, and just succeeded in joining the last of the boarding passengers - to a special welcome from the crew.
Our first impressions of Utah and Salt Lake City
