Go Read This

This is my brother's blog of his year off traveling around the world with his wife and two kids, Change in Plans.

I make no attempt to hide my struggles with his ability to take an entire year off to travel while my own family is struggling to make ends meet (and failing). But he is my brother and, regardless of my personal issues, I am deeply proud of his accomplishments.

Mexico is Nice But American Toilet Paper is Nicer

Yesterday was a long day. We started in the high humidity and high heat of Troncones/Zihuatenejo and ended up inthe foggy cool darknessof Watsonville. The day of smooth travel was, sadly, not to be had by us.

Our flight out was late which made the chances of our making the connection slimmer and noner by the minute. A night in LA wouldn't have been the worst thing that could have happened (that would probably be a traffic accident in Zihua or having our passports lifted). But still, we wanted our beds in our home. Not another borrowed beds somewhere in a borrowed room.

It turns out that there are significant advantages to flying the same carrier and to having San Francisco as our final destination. The big one being that Alaska Airlines held our connection. Read that slowly again, if you need to. There were about 20 people on the flight from Zihua that were heading to SFO as a final stop.

Rather than issue a crapload of expensive vouchers (since it was an Alaska Airlines plane that was late to get us there) they held the flight for us to clear customs, recheck bags, pass through security and then run to another plane.

Customs going both ways was, surprisingly, easy. Our bags were quick searched and we were greenlighted (literally in Zihua). The US customs in LAX (love that> irony) was huge and cool and fast, the Alaska Airlines baggage delivery was very slow (again, not passenger error or tardiness).

Through all of it both Grady and Sully were troopers of the highest and best order. Not perfect, at all, but they put up with a long day of movement, restriction, not enough food and repeated awakenings and awkward sleepings. Not to mention, idiot teens who think kids have "mute" or "off" buttons, not one but two broken baggage carousels, an excrement scented elevator, a 12:30 am stop at In'n'Out Burger for some road food home and a final arrival at home at just before 2 in the morning after starting the day in Zihua at about 6, the final drive home was very hard because of the deep weariness in us all but we did, finally, eventually and gratefully, get home.

And Grady was up at 6, which is why I am here, typing out a post at 7 am. Shouldn't 3 and a half hours of sleep be enough for a poppa? Apparently.

Alaska Airlines gets big props for stepping up after they dropped the ball on the first flight, also for having spunky stewardesses, good communication AND baby changing tables in the bathrooms (taking notes, US Airways?).

But I do like having my house around me again, I think I'm going to make some pancakes forme and the boys. Sully will be up before too long, I'm sure.

Getting Out of Dodge (or Troncones)

In baseball terms, its called the Getaway day. In vacation terms, its called Heading for Home. Either way, tomorrow is our last here in sunny, hot, humid and beautiful Troncones.

We fly out tomorrow afternoon, although in retrospect I'd wished we'd gotten an earlier flight to avoid the peak heat during the middle of the day. But that's alright, we'll be the last to leave.

I'll write up alot more of the trip once we're home and I've got broadband connectivity again. And I'll post some photos as well.

I am hoping the lightning storms come back tonight so I can try to catch some long exposure shots over the ocean. Last night was the first night without them.

We have had a good time but I'll be looking forward to getting back to a place without 190% humidity. Seriously, you wake up sweating here, it is somewhat insane.

Also, I invented a new word last night.
Mojita - a virgin mojito, a play off senorita and somewhat of an inside joke.

Wish us happy travels, easy customs and soft landings. I can't wait to see my hound on Sunday morning! Plus we fly Alaska Airlines out so that'll be a nice twist and should be a marked improvement over the corner cutter bottorom feeder airline that is US Airways.

Flying US Suckways

I am sorry, not really, but if there is no excuse for a modern airline to NOT have baby changing tables in the airplane bathrooms.

US Airways, aside from truly odd liability disclaimers from the steward, does not deem the need to change a baby's diaper as important enough to make it easy.

Have you ever tried to changed a diaper with your child laying on a toilet seat? It is neither easy nor fun. Add in a baby that refuses to lay flat while his diaper is getting changed and you've got mayhem in a 2 foot by 3 foot box. Woohoo!

I often catch myself wondering who I used to be when these things were totally inconsequential.
But tomorrow brings us to Mexico and family and fun. So I'm gonna go crash for now.

Also, Phoenix is insanely, ridiculously hot, even at 9 pm and beyond. What I call ball-sweating weather.

Thumb's Up for Kayak

I am a veteran of many a travel site from the early days of the internet and that ridiculous gobbleydegook that travel agents used to have to parse through to find travel deals. And there are aspects about each of them that I liked but none of them worked all of those best bits into one cohesive site.

Kayak.com isn't the perfect, perfect travel search site but it is damned close, fast, adjustable and covers an enormous swath of travel sites in one fast search.

So far it has easily surpassed the others I've used. And they don't use a Roaming Gnome as a spokesperson, that's nice.