Up at 5am to get onto an early ATL to SFO flight. It seems like the whole country had cloud cover, since we didn’t see the ground once, save for a few peaks at the Rocky Mountains and plateaus in Utah (pictured).
We had a 9-hour layover planned in San Franscisco, intentionally, so that we could see Chris’s sister Jen, her husband Chris and daughter Bridget (3), at least briefly. Jen and Bridget picked us up at the 
airport and we headed over to the Coyote Point wildlife study center near the airport (in Burlingame) and had a great time looking at CA animals and hordes of school children. Then we settled into a nearby cafe for an afternoon of eating, drinking coffee and sitting around and chatting. It was great to see them all even though it was just for a few hours.
Got on the long-haul airplane at 6:30pm (SFO time, 9:30pm ATL time) and took off in the dark over the Pacific ocean. There was a full moon a good part of the flight. The aircraft was a nice newish Boeing 777, which still had us crammed in too tight but at least gave every passenger his/her own independent movie playback system, with a library of hundred of movies and TV shows. Chris got through Into The Wild and Michael Clayton, and Sharon squandered the opportunity by watching Flight of the Conchords episodes that she had just seen last week. (Sharon says: I also watched a Japanese game show of a crane game competition with a Lolita girl in pink against 3 others picking up kawaii plush toys. Also watched several Kiwi cooking shows; I know everyone loves whitebait sandwiches, but I just don’t think I will.) The flight also had decent food and not too many squawling children.
13 hours later we landed in Auckland, but that’s Saturday’s entry …