Saturday – July 4, 2009 –

What kind of Americans are we? It’s the Fourth of July and we are leaving the country without celebrating the Fourth!

This afternoon, Mom and Dad drove Jeff and me to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. Jeff and I had lunch at Chili’s in the airport. After checking in for our flight to Los Angeles, we left Atlanta on Delta flight 63 at around 5:45 p.m.

During the flight, we had DirecTV and were able to watch then national fireworks shows on television. I had never seen real-time programming or satellite TV on a flight before. It was cool seeing the national celebrations on live television and then be able to look outside over middle America and see fireworks going off.

Upon arriving at LAX around 19:30 p.m., we had some time to kill before heading to the international terminal. We grabbed dinner at a Mexican restaurant and charged up our smart phones. Around 22:45, we boarded our longest flight ever, which would take us to Sydney. Outside, we could see some local fireworks going off near Long Beach. Goodbye America, hello Oz!