Utah trip day 1

Well, here I am finally sitting on Teri's bed hogging her laptop! What a looong trip!! I got up at 4am and headed off to the airport and checked in and sorted out my foreign exchange so now I have lots of monopoly money! lol, I'm sure it will be spent before I know it!
I sat next to a really nice guy on the plane who originally comes from Huston but is working in Glasgow as an underwater sub engineer with the oil companies and it was really fascinating finding out all the interesting things he does, he was off to Chicago, which was our destination, to do a documentary film on using the sub technology to try and find drown victims quicker. He asked me tons of questions about the church as most non Mormons do when they meet me.  It made the flight go really quickly to have someone to chat to :-)
He has a wife and little girl so we chatted a lot about kids and I told him about my photo books that he did and he asked if I could do one using the pictures he had of his wife from her being pregnant to now, their daughter is 14 months old for him to give to his wife for Mother's Day (American date people if you think he's a tad late! lol)
I said yes and that she could then use that as a demo book and tell all her friends to book shoots with me ;-p
I think I'll take the boys up there in the summer holidays and show them around, I'd like to see Scotland myself and he said he'd show them the flight simulator! I'm sure they'd love that!
Unfortunately I ate some veggie pasta on the plane as the only other choice was a half raw pie thing but ended up having horrible cramps the rest of the day and coupled with the long day that didn't exactly have me in the excited mood to arrive in Utah. I spent my first $3 on a Strawberry Snapple as I couldn't face all the yummy food in the food hall because I was feeling so ill, my budget and diet aren't complaining!
The plane I flew on from Utah to Salt Lake was like a little chocolate log!  My South African buddies will know what I'm talking about! lol
It was really tiny and cold and uncomfortable but I was so exhausted I managed to doze a bit.
You know you're flying into Utah when the man next to you asks, who was the prophet before Brigham Young, do you remember? and then adds on, are you from Salt Lake? Lol! I'm glad I look like I fit in! ;-p
As we were flying in over the snow capped mountains and the little plane's engines were groaning I kept panicking that we were going to crash into the mountains and thinking, I left my coat at home, I'm going to freeze! lol then we flew over the Salt Lake and I thought, well, if we crash now we can ditch into that and I thought, I'm going to die of hypothermia! lol,  on the up side Nick said if you're going to drown it should be in cold water because then they have up to an hour to revive you! lol.  I was very grateful when we finally touched down and I could get my feet back on tera firma!
When I arrived at the airport Teri and Dave weren't there and I had a slight panic attack because, as is typical of me, I hadn't made very good arrangements and hadn't a clue where to meet them, I ambled outside and found a passenger pick up point and luckily the sun was out and, despite the snow on the mountains, the weather was quite warm so I figured I'd just wait as I didn't have much other choice, her address was on my laptop and my battery was flat from watching Twilight to pass the time! They did come and fetch me soon after and had been held up by traffic so I was greatly relieved.  I was also feeling better and starting to get excited as we drove through the city on the lovely wide open roads and couldn't believe how many chapels there are close together and, oh, there's a temple and oh, look, there's another one! lol  We stopped at the new one and took some pics from outside.  We stopped at an ice cream place to buy a drink and I had a yummy Oreo milkshake as I was starting to feel hungry and spent my next $4! My diet and budget are not very happy! ;-p
We arrived at Teri's house and I was warmly welcomed and shown the picture on the mantle of Teri, Gina and I at my baptism! It's so nice to feel part of the family :-) After supper I had a quick shower and determined to stay awake till 9pm, making it a full 24 hours that I was awake! I was told I had to do this to make it easier to adjust to the time change and luckily everyone was so chatty I didn't really have a problem with it.  One of the neighbours came to visit and she was so friendly and wonderful, just like you see the Americans on tv! lol. Her husband was baptised by Donny Osmond!! Her sister has an amazing business success story, she decided 10 years ago for Christmas to pick up some cow pies (yes people, cow poo!! lol) and hollow out the center and put a clock in to give to the family as gag presents! Donny went to visit her sister for Christmas, saw the clock and said he wanted one! She had a funny little saying printed above the clock too.  He then took his clock and showed it on his talk show and there was a flood of calls of people wanting one of the clocks and so a mini empire has been born keeping Utah's cow fields free of cow pies! lol

Today we are doing a pre-wedding shoot at Bridal veil falls and the town hall so wish me luck people and most of all wish me sunshine!!! will check in later :-)
By the way, I thought of a cunning plan to back up my pics, I've downloaded a demo lightroom on Teri's laptop so I can process the pics here and send them to Facebook as backup! ;-p The added bonus is you nosy parkers get to see pics as I go along :-) Here's the first few