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Category Archives: Travel
California Dreaming
We made it home late last night. Although with our body clocks still being on Pacific time, it did not seem so late to us. We left the Left Coast amid sprinkles but landed here in the Lou after a deluge. The all-day rain had ended, but only just when we caught our Uber home. On the way home, we had to drive through standing water, but arriving safely home, we discovered that our basement was still dry. Welcome back to the Midwest!
We changed planes in Denver, where we were greeted by a former coworker, who was on our flight home. He was returning from working in Seattle. I quickly got all caught up on my former workplace’s news. We flew Southwest to Monterey and back, where bags fly free. It was an odd airline choice since we had just bought and brought with us on this trip new carryon bags. But what is really odd about Southwest is its boarding process.
Instead of getting a boarding pass with a seat assignment, you get a boarding pass with a line assignment. Before each flight everyone lines up in the order that they have been assigned. When boarding actually begins, everyone is free to choose any free seat that is still available. There is no first-class section at the front of the plane, like on other airlines. Line assignments can be purchased, but most people “check-in” 24 hours in advance to get in line.
This boarding/seat assignment process is the most egalitarian one in the industry. Which is probably why the elitist NYT has targeted it for change. Their recent article on the subject took aim at the profitability of this method. I mean Southwest is missing out on selling all of those premium priced tickets. On our last flight home, we sat in the third row. On any other airline it would take a million frequent flyer points to get that seat. Our seats weren’t without some baggage though. We ended up sitting behind a grandmother and her two young grandsons. The youngest one end up screaming for most of the flight.
One more oddity occurred during boarding. We lined up right behind a young woman, who was the same woman who we had lined up right behind on the flight out of California. The fashion statement of the day was made by another woman who was wearing a sweatshirt that said, “In Airplane Mode.”
Coastal Living
It never rains in California
But boy, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours.
It rained today, but stopped before we got to the 101. Sunny in San Jose and a day of airports ahead. See you on the flipside. Three coasts down and only one more to go and it isn’t even May yet.
Up in the Air, Junior Birdman
Our bags are packed, we are ready to go. Leaving town on a jet airplane today. In the air there is a certain type of entertainment that is never shown on airplanes. Movies that show bad things happening in the air are number one on this banned list. Idris Elba’s new series Hijack is one such offering. That is why I binged it last night. Air travel is normally stressful, add bad guys with guns and you are looking at a very long flight indeed. This seven-part TV series tracks a seven-hour flight from Dubai to London. So, the action in this very British thriller unfolds almost in real-time. Even all of the hijacking terrorists are British. Mr. Elba plays a passenger who works as a negotiator. Most likely a business deal negotiator, but in this fluid situation who knows. The hijacker’s plan soon goes astray when another passenger finds a bullet in the lavatory. This discovery accelerates the plot, forcing the hijackers to act sooner than they had planned. While most of the action takes place onboard the aircraft, as things develop elements of this story begin to happen on the ground. I am writing this post before our flights. Looking forward seven-hours seems too short. We will still be in the air by then. Hopefully.
Today, we are only flying domestic. The danger of international terrorism is small, but both of our Southwest flights are scheduled to be on Boeing 737 MAX8 aircraft. So, there is still opportunity for some excitement. Back when I was still working there the saying about air travel was, “If it is not Boeing, I am not going.” With all of the problems that Boeing has been having lately, the bloom is off that rose. But this will be my first time flying a MAX8 and I look forward to checking its new technology out.
Mini-Wheelie Bags
We received the two new wheelie bags that we had ordered. They were misdelivered to our neighbors, but we just porch pirated them back. They are smaller than the roller bags that we have been using forever. They are small enough to qualify as international carryon and we plan on using them for our Croatian trip. As a trial run, we are taking them to Monterey. We are going to visit my dad. Packing the smaller bags took more care than normal, but there was room for everything.
“Kings Landing”
We have begun planning our trip to Croatia for later this year. We had already signed up for a bicycle tour of the Dalmatian Coast, so a big part of this trip is already preplanned, but we intend to embellish the basic tour package a bit. Basically, this eight-day tour begins near Split and then moves south by boat to Dubrovnik. Most, if not all days of this tour feature cycling, but each day’s ride loops back upon itself, so by boat is how we will get from one place to the next. To help us acclimate to the time zone change, we plan on arriving a couple of days early. We have already booked a room at the ballet school that doubles as the tour’s first hotel. Tentatively, in those first two days we plan on visiting the nearby medieval harbor town of Trogir and wander its cobbled streets. Trogir is a UNESCO world heritage site, one of seven scattered along our route south. Another itinerary item is Krka National Park. Its waterfalls look gorgeous.
Then we begin the bicycle tour. Yesterday, we got out on our bikes again for another training ride. Saturday in Forest Park is always a zoo, and this time was no different. Afterwards, we both felt better than after last week’s inaugural ride.
The Croatian cycling tour ends in the Adriatic jewel of Dubrovnik, and we plan on adding on some more time there also. Already a world-famous destination, Dubrovnik added to its fame when the HBO television series Game of Thrones casted it as the fictional city Kings Landing. Needless to say, a GoT themed cottage industry has sprouted there. We will eschew these tourist trap tours, because I already have a map of film locales and the town offers so much else.
That is as far as we have gotten with our travel plans to date. We are notionally considering extending our European travel even further, but so far, we have not gotten there yet. I expect that more YouTube U studying will be in order.