Brendan and Buffalo

Well we've arrived at Buffalo and met Brendan, but let's go back to the start of the day.

Didn't get much sleep. It was the typical airport motel with people checking in and out all night. Don't quite know where next door was going when they checked out at midnight, given that the LAX airport curfew had just started, but I never got back to sleep, and we had to be up just after 3am to catch the 4am shuttle to the airport for our 6am flight.

United charges you for everything, including luggage and breakfast, so my credit card is getting a work out even before we get anywhere. An Airbus took us to Cleveland in time for lunch, a much smaller plane than yesterday's international leg, but it wasn't till we got on to the tiny plane for the last leg of our journey out of Cleveland that we realised just how small Buffalo must be. We didn't get the choice of a window or an aisle seat - it was pointless, our seats were both. You had to crouch to get on-board, and the one and only flight attendant wore earplugs to keep the noise out. About 30 passengers in total, and it wasn't full. I can only hope that there are more people interested in gettting to Buffalo next weekend.

I'd gone to all the trouble of signing up with Alamo and pre-check-in to 'avoid the queues and go straight to the kiosk and the car'. Not in Buffalo. It's too small to warrant a kiosk machine - you had to queue at the desk anyway. We were upgraded to a huge Jeep without being asked, which is lovely, but somebody of my height challenge can't see the corners of the car while driving down the wrong side of the road, so it's all a bit exciting at times.

Finally made the motel using Samantha - our friendly GPS voice. We're staying at the hotel where the wedding and reception is taking place, and a lovely bag of welcoming goodies was waiting for us, courtesy of Lynne. Made contact with Brendan, who was actually shopping at the mall next door to the motel, so we walked across in the snow and had a burger with him for tea whilst catching up on all his news.

Seems Ashley got in last night safely, and made it by Greyhound to Cleveland this morning to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (so we were all in Cleveland at the same time). However they had cancelled his return bus, so instead of leaving Cleveland at 5pm, he's leaving at 10pm, and won't be back in Buffalo till about 2am. No wonder his body clock is all stuffed up.