Day 1-2: The Long Trail to Rest
We got about three hours sleep before leaving - my strategy to avoid being awake for a four-hour flight. Mostly worked.
We packed up (two suitcases, two travel bags) into Myra's xTerra (or is that really Xterra? Or XTerra?) and drove over to my folks' place. Dad, bless his heart, was basically waiting at the door for us at 5:39AM. We swapped into Dad's car and Dad drove to Midway - and mostly in silence, as Myra and I nodded off a bit. We stepped into Midway at about 6:45, and I think we got to our gate at 6:58. And we were at the furthest gate from the door - which means that around three-quarters of the time spent was spent -walking-.
(I'm a bit jaded after our last trip out of Midway in 2007, where the line to get tickets snaked back and forth and way back into this disused luggage scanning area. It had TWO people saying "the line is better than it looks". Then there was the thirty-minute line through security.)
This time, the ticket line was more just a dodgem course through ropes, and I actually felt hustled through security. I tried to sleep in the chairs at the gate, but Myra kept waking me up to tell me I was sleeping - she pronounced it "snoring". But soon, they called for boarding passes. Myra and I were near the front of the line - but two people jockeyed themselves in front of me and made Myra stop and insist I cut back. *sigh* Anyway, she took a middle seat and asked me to take aisle. I think she was sorta creating a barrier for potential seaters. However, she failed to realize that she was creating an empty window seat, which was a commodity of some value. A gentleman who looked vaguely like Tim Robbins took it, and his main role would be to lean forward and block the entire window whenever the captain announced something to look at. "And now, if you look out the right side of the plane, you'll see - wait - oh, it's just the back of Tim Robbins' head." I slept through three hours and woke to my greatest nightmare - playing hotseat Scrabble on Myra's broke-ass DS Lite. She's waiting for the DSi to come out in pink here in America, but I may push that along a bit. It's like trying to play Scrabble from a foot above the board, dropping tiles and hoping they land in the right spot. I think I lost three turns due to time limit. Wowzers.
Stepped off the plane, out the gate, walked across the corridor, and sat down at the gate for our connecting flight from LA to San Jose. Delayed an hour - rats. So we stopped at a Starbucks, got a frappuccino and an apple gallete (which I had seen before on Good Eats), and sat down to wait. I broke out PSP Scrabble and we played hotseat - I did okay. As we waited for boarding, Myra was worried that we would be followed by some woman on the Midway-LA flight who spent two hours talking about her office budget (Myra says she was bragging to a complete stranger) and who just would not shut up - but we were much further ahead in boarding line than her, so we were safe. This time, the flight was severely underbooked - the boarding gate attendant let us know that we could each have our own row, if we wanted. So Myra took window and I took aisle. This time, we more or less stayed awake through the whole flight, and I looked at stuff in the Sky Mall catalog and laughed. (They make an astroturf mat that your pet can pee on, because there's a rubber drain tray underneath it. Apparently they want to train your pet to pee on mats.)
Yay! We've reached San Jose! Now the hour-long drive in the rental to get to the resort. And the lady at the rental counter is just weird. She asks us about the insurance THREE TIMES, tries to get us to upgrade the car, but then responds to Myra asking if she needs to show her Triple-A card by saying, "I trust you - why shouldn't I? This is California." Strange. And we had to pull over about a minute into the trip because the car had one of those goofy sorta-automatic-sorta-manual shifts. Myra handled it like a pro, though - and the trip through the California hills was nice and picturesque. Took a few - they'll be up somewhere later. We pulled up at the nicely quiet resort about 5:30 local time. Checkin was pretty painless - they give you a golf cart! We were originally slated for a partial-ocean-view room, but we asked for an upgrade and it was a reasonably small bump to get a full view. (I suspect they're underbooked right now.) Settled into the room, set up my squid and logged in to check the wireless connection. Watched Food Network for a while, then we went out for dinner.
Our original target was a nice-sounding barbecue place, Buzzard's. It's located right inside a horrific road knot, so we spent a good ten minutes driving in circles trying to find it. And it was rightly hard to find, as we basically discovered that (a) it was attached to a hotel, and (b) it appears to have been replaced by a sushi bar. The phone number was disconnected - should have called it before we left. Anyway, we drove around a little bit, looking for something a bit more regional than Denny's, and found the yummiest small local chain diner. I had the pot roast, Myra had the meat loaf, and we got this huge peach-filled bear claw to go. Nice, quiet, warm friendly place - a great closer to our first day here in cloudy California. (Except when the radio station switched briefly to Depressing Songs of the 70s. "Cat's in the Cradle", "Time in a Bottle" and "American Pie". Myra saw someone literally go up to the jukebox in hopes of a happy song.) Came back to the room, surfed and watched TV, dropped off.
This morning has been (as intended) quiet and unhurried. I've been online, Myra's been resting, and the ocean's gone by. The TV repairpeople just came in, as the TV is putting a bluish tinge on everything. (I think it's bad planning that they put it just above the fireplace, but whatever.) Myra's signed up for a massage this afternoon, but that's about it for things we plan to do. We've got one or two touristy things planned for later in the week - I won't spoil the surprise. But the complimentary binoculars just arrived - yay! But then our Internet bombed and I barely saved this post - boo.
Greetings and friendly salutations from the West Coast - where people trust unquestioningly and the highway design seems to be more or less random.
We packed up (two suitcases, two travel bags) into Myra's xTerra (or is that really Xterra? Or XTerra?) and drove over to my folks' place. Dad, bless his heart, was basically waiting at the door for us at 5:39AM. We swapped into Dad's car and Dad drove to Midway - and mostly in silence, as Myra and I nodded off a bit. We stepped into Midway at about 6:45, and I think we got to our gate at 6:58. And we were at the furthest gate from the door - which means that around three-quarters of the time spent was spent -walking-.
(I'm a bit jaded after our last trip out of Midway in 2007, where the line to get tickets snaked back and forth and way back into this disused luggage scanning area. It had TWO people saying "the line is better than it looks". Then there was the thirty-minute line through security.)
This time, the ticket line was more just a dodgem course through ropes, and I actually felt hustled through security. I tried to sleep in the chairs at the gate, but Myra kept waking me up to tell me I was sleeping - she pronounced it "snoring". But soon, they called for boarding passes. Myra and I were near the front of the line - but two people jockeyed themselves in front of me and made Myra stop and insist I cut back. *sigh* Anyway, she took a middle seat and asked me to take aisle. I think she was sorta creating a barrier for potential seaters. However, she failed to realize that she was creating an empty window seat, which was a commodity of some value. A gentleman who looked vaguely like Tim Robbins took it, and his main role would be to lean forward and block the entire window whenever the captain announced something to look at. "And now, if you look out the right side of the plane, you'll see - wait - oh, it's just the back of Tim Robbins' head." I slept through three hours and woke to my greatest nightmare - playing hotseat Scrabble on Myra's broke-ass DS Lite. She's waiting for the DSi to come out in pink here in America, but I may push that along a bit. It's like trying to play Scrabble from a foot above the board, dropping tiles and hoping they land in the right spot. I think I lost three turns due to time limit. Wowzers.
Stepped off the plane, out the gate, walked across the corridor, and sat down at the gate for our connecting flight from LA to San Jose. Delayed an hour - rats. So we stopped at a Starbucks, got a frappuccino and an apple gallete (which I had seen before on Good Eats), and sat down to wait. I broke out PSP Scrabble and we played hotseat - I did okay. As we waited for boarding, Myra was worried that we would be followed by some woman on the Midway-LA flight who spent two hours talking about her office budget (Myra says she was bragging to a complete stranger) and who just would not shut up - but we were much further ahead in boarding line than her, so we were safe. This time, the flight was severely underbooked - the boarding gate attendant let us know that we could each have our own row, if we wanted. So Myra took window and I took aisle. This time, we more or less stayed awake through the whole flight, and I looked at stuff in the Sky Mall catalog and laughed. (They make an astroturf mat that your pet can pee on, because there's a rubber drain tray underneath it. Apparently they want to train your pet to pee on mats.)
Yay! We've reached San Jose! Now the hour-long drive in the rental to get to the resort. And the lady at the rental counter is just weird. She asks us about the insurance THREE TIMES, tries to get us to upgrade the car, but then responds to Myra asking if she needs to show her Triple-A card by saying, "I trust you - why shouldn't I? This is California." Strange. And we had to pull over about a minute into the trip because the car had one of those goofy sorta-automatic-sorta-manual shifts. Myra handled it like a pro, though - and the trip through the California hills was nice and picturesque. Took a few - they'll be up somewhere later. We pulled up at the nicely quiet resort about 5:30 local time. Checkin was pretty painless - they give you a golf cart! We were originally slated for a partial-ocean-view room, but we asked for an upgrade and it was a reasonably small bump to get a full view. (I suspect they're underbooked right now.) Settled into the room, set up my squid and logged in to check the wireless connection. Watched Food Network for a while, then we went out for dinner.
Our original target was a nice-sounding barbecue place, Buzzard's. It's located right inside a horrific road knot, so we spent a good ten minutes driving in circles trying to find it. And it was rightly hard to find, as we basically discovered that (a) it was attached to a hotel, and (b) it appears to have been replaced by a sushi bar. The phone number was disconnected - should have called it before we left. Anyway, we drove around a little bit, looking for something a bit more regional than Denny's, and found the yummiest small local chain diner. I had the pot roast, Myra had the meat loaf, and we got this huge peach-filled bear claw to go. Nice, quiet, warm friendly place - a great closer to our first day here in cloudy California. (Except when the radio station switched briefly to Depressing Songs of the 70s. "Cat's in the Cradle", "Time in a Bottle" and "American Pie". Myra saw someone literally go up to the jukebox in hopes of a happy song.) Came back to the room, surfed and watched TV, dropped off.
This morning has been (as intended) quiet and unhurried. I've been online, Myra's been resting, and the ocean's gone by. The TV repairpeople just came in, as the TV is putting a bluish tinge on everything. (I think it's bad planning that they put it just above the fireplace, but whatever.) Myra's signed up for a massage this afternoon, but that's about it for things we plan to do. We've got one or two touristy things planned for later in the week - I won't spoil the surprise. But the complimentary binoculars just arrived - yay! But then our Internet bombed and I barely saved this post - boo.
Greetings and friendly salutations from the West Coast - where people trust unquestioningly and the highway design seems to be more or less random.