The journey to DC

****Firstly, a couple of disclaimers: I am neither a writer nor a photographer. I'm doing the blog as a means to share our activities with friends and family and also have a record of our time here. 

I am also very behind in getting this blog started - bear with me as I catch up, I'll try to do it quickly.

We found out about our move to DC in September 2023. There was a lot of chat about the move from then, but not a lot of activity until February/March when the paperwork, medical and dental appointments, and removal/storage planning started. There were countless forms filled in, signed and submitted with most of it being completed by Russ who was thankfully on long-service leave at the time.

In April we offloaded our chickens to a lovely lady who lives one suburb over. We got talking when she came to collect a bike we had put on the verge "free to good home" and one thing led to another and she agreed to take the girls. 

May saw the departure of our more beloved pets. The cats (Barney and Parkie) were flown over to Victor Harbor where they are being spoilt rotten by Judy and Geoff (Russ' mum and step-dad). 

Barney and Parkie in their new home

Our beautiful Border Collie, Roy, has moved in with his Golden Retriever girlfriend Maggie, and Maggie's family Jon, Jess, Millie and Bert. Maggie and Roy get on brilliantly, and we know he is being treated as a member of their family.

Roy with his girlfriend Maggie

We are so grateful to those who took in our animals. We know they will be loved while we are gone and we look forward to getting them back home with us when we return to Australia.

May also saw us list our house for rent. It took longer than expected to secure a tenant which we can only put down to the lease term being 12 months with no extensions, but we were thrilled when we had a tenant confirmed on the day we departed. Until the tenants moved in our friends Nick and Kellie were very kindly checking in on the house. Our neighbour Tulip also keeps an eye out. Both give us comfort.

I finished up with my work on Friday, 24th May with drinks and nibbles to celebrate (thanks Nicole). It is not lost on me how fortunate I am that work has allowed me to take leave without pay until we return next year. 

The big house pack up started with a skip bin and a clear out in early May. With 20/20 hindsight we didn't clean any where near enough stuff! On Wednesday, 29th May the items being moved to the US were packed and uplifted. Thursday, 30th May saw the most efficient group of removalists pack the remaining contents of our house into many, many boxes. The uplift from the house was scheduled for the next day, but given a pretty terrible weather forecast for Friday a team of removalists (there were at least eight at one stage) got the majority of our items packed into the first of two shipping containers. 

We moved into the Burbury Apartments on the Thursday evening, one apartment for Russ and I, and another for Laura and Ben. Quite luxurious accommodation for our time left in Canberra.

The remaining contents of the house were packed into the second shipping container on the morning of Friday, 31st May, with the house clear by mid morning. Everything is being stored at a facility in Queanbeyan NSW. Hopefully no fires, floods or plagues are experienced during this time.

 Empty house

...more empty house

The last few days in Canberra were used to sell Russ's car (thanks for the assistance David), do some paint touch-ups to the house and move my car and the last of our bits and bobs out to storage with friends on their property at Royalla (a huge thanks to Steve and Michelle for allowing us to do so).

After nine months of waiting, and feeling like it was never going to happen, we finally departed Canberra on the evening of Tuesday, 4 June with six suitcases and much anticipation of our adventure ahead.

Heading to the airport

...and again

Our flight from Canberra to Sydney departed on time and landed early. We then had a couple of hours to wait until we boarded the flight to San Francisco and got to turn left on entering the plane as we were so incredibly fortunate to have been travelling on business class tickets. What a way to fly! We left Sydney at 9.30pm on Tuesday, 4 June and landed in San Francisco at 5.00pm on Tuesday, 4 June. As we are travelling on A2 visas we were able to skip the normal customs queue and line up with diplomats and flights attendants. We cleared customs, collected our suitcases and were out of the airport in half an hour - amazing!

San Fran is, for want of a better term, cool. We only had one full day there but managed to pack in a visit to Alcatraz (meeting the sea lions at Pier 39 on the wharf on the way), an open top bus ride over the Golden Gate Bridge (we had planned to hire bikes and ride over the bridge, but there was a gale force wind blowing which changed our mind) and around the city, a ride on the cable car up Hyde Street and a walk down Lombard Street "the crookedest street in the world".

Sea lions at Pier 39

Alcatraz from Pier 39

Inside Alcatraz

...more inside Alcatraz

Golden Gate bridge - pic credit to Laura

Golden Gate Bridge

 *Not our pic!

* Our pic

As easy as it was getting out of San Francisco airport on arrival, it was very stressful getting to our departure gate to fly to DC. We allowed about three hours, but the traffic crawled in places and the 15 mile trip took well over an hour. We then also had to contend with my bag being overweight (see my "what we've learned" below) which meant that in the middle of the bag drop area I was moving clothes from my bag to Ben's bag. Once that was sorted there was a line up to pass through the K9 screening and then a line up to pass through security. We finally boarded the plane, all sitting separately, and started the last leg of the journey. 

Leaving San Fran - so dry. Pic credit to Laura

Flying over the middle of America.  Pic credit to Laura   

 Arriving in Arlington - so green! Pic credit to Laura

The flight landed about half an hour early, at 7.00pm, which was nice. By the time we got to our temporary accommodation it was about 8.30pm so we had a quick dinner, unpacked our bags and went to bed ready for the next phase of the trip to start.

What we've learned:

23 kg (Australian checked baggage weight) is ever so slightly more than 50 lbs (American checked baggage weight) and there is absolutley no wriggle room. Guess who was weighing their bag on the kg setting on the travel scales when we were packing up in San Fran! 

23 kg = 50.71 lbs.