Well once again the trip took forever and yet somehow screamed by. It started with goodbyes at LAX around 2pm May 9th. I was surprised how relaxed getting rifles through LAX was. They didnt even confirm my serial numbers or examine by hand each rifle… surprising… Oh well, either way I removed the bolts to cool off any hot-heads in the TSA I may come across as well as for when they arrived in South Africa. Even if there were cartridges loaded in magazine, with the bolt removed there is just NO way a bullet can be fired from the rifle.

My five and one half hour flight to New York wasn’t too bad really. We passed a big lightning storm while on the East Coast somewhere, I just caught a glimpse of a bolt as someone lowered their window shade. It made for a few bumps but nothing spectacular. I still give my thanks to the nice steward from Delta who kept me nourished with a bounty of peanuts, pretzles and cookies haha! Oh and plenty of apple juices to wash it all down! I was in a rush to make that flight so I didn’t have time for a proper meal. In fact, I was 20 minutes late for my boarding but fortunately the plane wasn’t scheduled to leave for another 20 minutes so there was no problem. But had I given in to my bothersome stomach, I might have been late. I always look at the first leg of the trip to Africa as a good preparation for the usual 14-16 hour flight that follows. I just tell myself, “If I think this is long, well then I’m screwed for the next flight so I better get along with it!”

So we landed in JFK just fine, it was actually one of the smoothest landings I have ever had in a large aircraft and I complimented the pilot on my way out. So off I was to the baggage claim for my regular luggage (I was also forced to check in my small carry on roller bag because the flight ran out of overhead room). I got there fast and was just a few meters (I have to start thinking in metric terms now, all they use is the metric system out here!) down from where the luggage slides down and onto the conveyor belt. My baggage was unloaded amongst the first set of bags, small carry on, “Great!” I thought to myself and I snatched it off the belt and waited for the next one. Rifle case, “Awesome, there’s another…. wait wait WHAT!???!” What the hell was my rifle case doing coming off of the regular conveyor belt??? I thought I was supposed to have to pick it up at the oversized baggage office and give nothing short of a blood sample and 50 other forms of identification first? Well, I wasn’t going to leave it there, and I wasn’t going to ask for trouble so I quickly snagged that one up as well. About another minute or two passed and there was my final large roller bag. I looked over both shoulders and no one had tackled me just yet so I figured I better split before something goes aray.

After that it was a lovely 8.5 hours of torture in the more than lacking airport chairs at JFK. No matter which position I layed in my neck or back would ache or my leg or foot would take a cat-nap. So I did my best to straddle all my luggage pieces with an arm or leg or something while I tried to catch some shut-eye. I may have gotten around 2 hours of very broken and disturbed sleep on my flight from LAX and I previously stayed up all night to finish packing and loading my 458 Lott rounds. I was plum exhausted…

Finally it was nearing my flight time so I headed up to the fourth floor, struggling with all of my luggage. Now I was expecting the New York TSA to be (excuse me if you’re a New Yorker, I know you’re not all like this) somewhat jerks and this proved to be true. The cop that checked my rifles was a little short with me at first but then after he heard I was going out to Africa and that the rifles were for hunting he perked up nicely. His eyes widened and he began to ask me which kinds of animals I will be taking with the rifles and so on. He was quite interested and the rest of my businesss with him was quite pleasant after that. It just goes to show not everyone hates hunters, even a New York cop can take a liking to you. Now if I can just work on the liberals in my home state of California haha!

So that part went well, but that was just the first step. The next was actually going through TSA. Now you all know how they require you to take off your shoes belts and essentially strip down to nothing. Well I had my massive laced up hunting boots on, my belt, and pieces of metal (pens coins etc) all over my body. I also had a laptop which has to be in its own separate bin when you put it through the machine and so on… Well of course the TSA girl got pissy with me for taking so long and I just told her “You guys are the ones who want us to take off our shoes and belts and separate our laptops and everything, so it’s going to take me a minute to do what you guys make us do.” Well thank God that shut her up but now they were mad at me. So they tried to put me in the microwave machine and I told her no I didn’t want to. So they started screaming “OPT OUT, OPT OUT, WE’VE got an OPT OUT HERE!” And they weren’t even saying it to eachother as much as they just seemed to be yelling it to everyone that was waiting in line. I was like what the heck? It’s like they try to embarass you so that you don’t ask to opt out. Very strange, but ultimately I didn’t care, let them act like fools. So after telling the guy to keep his hands off my “Hoo-Hoo” and out of my “Crack” he went on about his business. And I won’t get all into this but I will say one thing. Since when was I a suspected criminal in need of a guy running his hands over the entire surface of my body???

Alright so with all that behind me I waited for my flight. It went well. We had a great tail wind and we arrived 45 mins early for a total of just over 14 hours. The food was ok, but I did have a Scotch Double in honor of my Great Uncle. J&B is what they had, and that was just fine. For anyone that is considering flying South African Airways, well… They aren’t as good as some airlines, but then again they were a direct flight from the East Coast straight to Joberg for a good price, so I can’t complain too much.

One for you and one for me ol’ buddy:

Sunrise flying in over South Africa (May 11th):

Cheers!

-The Jonny