DAY 72
Week 11
CORINTH (Texas, USA) to SYDNEY (New South Wales, AUS)
Saturday May 25th, 2019
TODAYS MILEAGE – 8,674 miles / 13,959 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 32,701 miles / 52,627 kilometres
My final day outside of Australia on this Taco's & Toucan's travels ~ 2019 trip started as per most mornings - up before 4AM, a cup of black coffee and updating the Blog.
The major difference this morning being the influx of bargain hunters, filling the Cul-De-Sac and adjoining streets in preparation for the lawn/garage sale that the neighbour in the rental property across the street was conducting from 8AM. By 7AM we were virtual prisoners in our own homes as people just parked where ever they found an open patch of real estate, including across driveways, the middle of the Cul-De-Sac and clearly marked fire lanes.
It was so bad that I had to back one of my niece’s friend’s car out of the driveway, as it was that packed in. Luckily for the those inconsiderate attendees, Bek invited me along to return some gear at the Stonebriar Centre, about 30 miles (48 kilometres) away, which considerably reduced the risk of an Australian initiated 'mysterious vehicle fires' in the neighbourhood.
While we were all the way out over in Frisco, we decided to head over to the Allen Premium Outlets, who were advertising a Calvin Klein outlet and as they were only 15 minutes away, I thought an update to the undies drawer was in order. If the truth be told, the only thing 'Premium' about the place was the pricing, as they looked to be hitting your wallet harder than an upset tax inspector. The other issue Bek, Myah and I had was that quite a few of the advertised 'anchor tenants' were no longer trading and yup, you guessed it – Calvin was one of them.
We arrived back at home around 2 o’clock to find that the neighbours were officially 6 hours into their lawn/garage sale and the only thing that looks to have diminished is the vehicle traffic. The other observation being that judging by the state of their lawn, it looks like they're collecting more shit than they're selling.
I headed to DFW International around 5:30 PM and due to a great run I got there just under ½ an hour, which was somewhat fortuitous as I wanted to speak to Avis regarding losing ½ a day with a dead vehicle. In speaking with their site operations manager, I was able to half the original rental fee and have no fuel charges, which equates to having the 2020 Dodge Ram Durango GT 4 door 4x2 costing me a measly $61 USD for the week – score. I was actually just looking for them the give me a free day for the inconvenience, but as I never enter a negotiation by making an initial offer, I simply settled with what they felt was fair.
Dinner was in DFW’s International Terminal D Tex-Mex restaurant Rio Mambo, where the Plato Diana main course of grilled marinated chicken breast, served on a sizzling bed of mushrooms, onions and poblano peppers, with Mexican rice, a bean soup and two beers lightened my wallet by $40 USD.
While waiting for Qantas flight QF8 to board, I ran into former Australian Wallabies World Cup winning captain - John Eales, nicknamed 'Nobody' as in 'nobody's perfect'. We got chatting about next year’s Golden Oldies rugby festival in Denver and he reckons he hasn’t pulled a pair of boots on since he last played for Australia.
I said that doesn’t matter as the Alice Springs Dingoes will find a spot for him on the wing, like we did with Stephen Larkham last year in New Zealand. Our scheduled 10PM departure came and went while I was ensconced in seat 80A due to what the flight deck called an “engineering resolution”. We eventually took to the skies around 10:55 with a promise to arrive at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith International at our advertised arrival time of 6:10 AM in two days.
Experience had taught me that this revised ETA would be highly ambitious, due to the log jam of 6AM arrivals.
• CORINTH (Texas, USA) to SYDNEY ~ Kingsford Smith International Airport (New South Wales, AUS)
Here's a breakdown of the travel times and distances:
∗ CORINTH (Texas, USA) to DALLAS ~ Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (Texas, USA)
96.1 miles / 154.6 kilometres
• Travel Time: 1 hour 52 minutes
8,578 miles / 13,804 kilometres
• Qantas Airlines QF8: 16 hours 44 minutes