Category Archives: Travel

2013/06/25 · 06:29

TechEd Europe: day 0

As I started writing this, I was in the back of a Delta MD-80 heading to Atlanta, thence to pick up Delta flight 109 to Madrid. The process reminds me in many ways of the first real set of international business trips I made, back in 2000-2002; Many aspects of the travel world have changed since then, but some have not.

For example, I have two laptops. Back in the day, I carried a ThinkPad for running Windows apps and a Powerbook for everything else. Now I’m taking my MacBook Pro because I need it to do demos in my TechEd session and my Dell-issued laptop because I need it for Dell work. All of the attendant weight, volume, and hassle constraints that come about from dual-wielding laptops are the same as they ever were.

Then there’s my cell phone. I have carried a Nokia 920 running Windows Phone 8 as my daily phone since November of 2012, and I am very happy with it. Unfortunately, AT&T wouldn’t SIM-unlock it for me, so I won’t be able to use it with a local SIM in Spain. That meant I had to dust off my iPhone 4, which is SIM-unlocked. I started using it last night and found it to be terribly clunky and slow compared to the 920. I don’t mean the data speed itself is slow, although it is; the phone UI itself is terribly slow compared to the 920. However, I like having iMessage available to chat with the many, many iOS users among my friends and contacts, and I am also toting my Pebble, which is completely unsupported and therefore essentially useless with Windows Phone. (Side note: I am eager to see what kind of Windows Phone announcements come out at Microsoft’s Build conference this week; I’m looking forward to more details on Nokia’s Amber and on Windows Phone Blue, or 8.1, or whatever it’s called now). So on balance, I’d have to say that the taking-a-US-cell-phone-to-Europe story is pretty much unchanged as well.

Delta surprised me with what’s known as an “operational upgrade,” or op-up, on the Atlanta-Madrid leg. That is, I didn’t buy a business class ticket, and I was not eligible for an upgrade based on my fare class, but Delta wanted to make more room in coach for paying passengers, and they had some empty business-class seats, so they moved me. I certainly wasn’t going to complain; this is the first time I’ve ever gotten an op-up and I was glad of it. I slept almost the entire way in the seat pod; by mashing buttons you can convert it into a narrow flat bed that ends up just about at floor level. The experience was oddly like sleeping in a mummy sleeping bag– the pod is only about 12″ at the footwell, and since I wear a size 13 shoe it was a bit of a tight fit.

We arrived on time at the Madrid airport, and I took a taxi to the hotel that Microsoft arranged for speakers, the Meliá Castilla. It’s gorgeous: very stately and European. Apparently it is near a bunch of nifty stuff but I was only there long enough to take a quick shower and catch a shuttle to IFEMA, the large conference center where TechEd itself is being held. I worked a shift at the “ask the experts” area and got a few good questions; more to say about that in another post. Then it was off to the speaker lounge to check my demos for tomorrow’s session. More to follow… 

1 Comment

Filed under Travel, UC&C

Tagged as ,

2012/12/09 · 17:14

Weekend wrapup

Paul robichaux net 20121209 002Tom is putting our Elvis ornament on the tree. Yes, that Elvis. I’m flying back from a short but eventful weekend with the boys. During this whirlwind visit, we bought a small Christmas tree and decorated it with our favorite ornaments. These ornaments all have some kind of sentimental or event connection; for example, there’s a Rushmore ornament from our long road trip with my dad; there’s the Marine Corps logo ornament, and so on. We also sponsored two Salvation Army “angels”: a 12-year-old boy and a veteran living in a local nursing home. We had a terrific time picking out clothes, toys, and other items from their wish lists. This is something Arlene and I used to do before we even had kids; over the last couple of years it had fallen off my radar but I was really glad to renew the tradition with the boys. Plus: Oreos.

 

On this trip, I also got my first taste of wireless charging, courtesy of the “free” Nokia DT-900 charging plate that AT&T was giving away when I bought the 920. It’s magic: you put the phone on top of the little charging puck and it charges, as advertised. The rate of charge seems to be slower than a regular USB connection, but the convenience can’t be beat. Sadly Windows Phone doesn’t (yet?) support wireless sync, but the ability to plop the phone down to let it have a snack, then pick it up and go without fussing over cords is delightful.

And speaking of delightful: I mentioned a few posts ago that I would post an example of what the Lumia 920’s camera can do. Here’s one of my cousin Adam.

Paul robichaux net 20121124 004

And, as a bonus, here’s one I took indoors, with no flash. The color reproduction and sharpness is excellent. I’m very well pleased with the 920 as a camera, as well as as a phone.

Paul robichaux net 20121124 005

In other power-related news, I finally broke down and bought Apple’s airline power adapter. Many American Airlines planes (and some on Delta) still have 12V sockets at their seats, and after running out of battery on my last flight I thought I’d give it a try. The in-seat outlets can’t provide enough current to both charge a MacBook Pro and operate it; all they do is slow the rate of discharge. I got on the plane with 76% battery; after nearly two hours of moderate activity, plus having a phone plugged in, I’m down to 58% with the adapter in place. This is better than nothing, although inferior to the 115V outlets on newer 737-900s and other planes of similar vintage.

Finally, today at the Chinese buffet, here’s what my fortune said. I am choosing to take this as a good omen for my check ride next week!

NewImage

 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Friends & Family, Travel

2012/10/30 · 16:44

Voodoo Music Experience 2012

VOODOO sculpture

Wow.

The boys and I just wrapped up a visit for New Orleans for the Voodoo Music Experience 2012. What a fantastic time!

Friday morning I picked them up in Birmingham and we had a pleasant drive down to the city, stopping at Charlie’s Catfish House along the way. The boys were a bit nonplussed to be served whole catfish but that didn’t really slow them down. We got to the festival about 3:30pm and immediately started exploring. I was surprised that security didn’t turn me away because I was carrying a “professional camera” (you know, the kind with a detachable lens) but I wasn’t about to complain. After some wandering, David and Tom went to the EDM stage to see Nervo while Matt and I headed off to go see Thomas Dolby. We were no more than 10′ from the stage for the show, which was outstanding. I’ve been wanting to see Dolby in concert for 30 years and thoroughly enjoyed getting to do so at long last. Bonus: he has a new album and played a couple of cuts from it. Extra bonus: he was joined on stage by Michael Doucet, who plays a mean fiddle. (Set list: “Europa and the Pirate Twins”, “One of our Submarines”, “Airhead”, “Pulp Culture”, then “Spice Train”, “Evil Twin Brother”, and “The Toad Lickers” from his new album, then “I Love You Goodbye”, “Hyperactive”, and “She Blinded Me With Science.”)

DSC 0935TMDR gettin’ down

DSC 0942

After the show, I got to see my pal and (fellow Exchange MVP) Jason Sherry at the Thomas Dolby show. This was his 16th Voodoo show– an enviable record. I think he should win a prize. Matt and I also checked out Christian Ristow’s Face Forward sculpture, a giant metal head with an articulated, remote-controlled face, plus a giant metal crawfish whose antennae emit fire after dark.

DSC 0926show me your war face

We wandered around a bit more until it was time for the next EDM acts: JFK of MSTRKRFT, followed by Kaskade. (Actually, Die Antwoord was on stage but no way was I going to let the boys go see them; they are incredibly NSFW.) JFK put on a pretty good set but was not very engaged with the crowd. Kaskade, on the other hand, killed: fantastic set, good crowd involvement, and a great vibe. He was actually pretty laid-back; not really what I was expecting for an EDM set. Matt was able to talk us into the VIP area on stage rights so we were pretty close to the action, which was fantastic. David and Tom got right up front, too, which was a treat for them.

DSC 0969

Notice the cool hat he’s wearing

As you might be able to tell from the photos, my night photo technique needs some work. Most of the concert pics I shot were with my D5100 and Nikon’s 55-200 f/4. This is a great all-around lens but I need to remember to aim the focus points when I’m shooting from a distance. EDM stages are tricky, too, because there are often large backlit screens behind the performer. This wasn’t a huge problem when we were off to the side in the VIP area but it was a problem for Metallica, as you will soon see.

Anyway, we went to bed exhausted but happy Friday, slept in a bit on Saturday, then skipped breakfast and went straight to Deanie’s Seafood. Of all the many restaurants in N’Awlins, this is one of the most resonant for me; it was one of my Aunt Betty’s very, very favorites and I have many happy memories of eating there with her when visiting the city. I wanted the boys to see it, and we had a delightful meal with bonus Aunt B storytelling thrown in. Then a quick drive back to City Park put us in position for another day of music. Saturday’s weather was quite a bit different– mid-50s with a steady chill wind and heavy overcast for almost the entire day. Luckily we found the one food stand that was selling hot chocolate, Quintin’s, and patronized it heavily.

Saturday’s lineup was pretty strong. We had planned to see DJ QBert and Metallica as our two main acts; Tom wanted to see AWOLNATION, and there were a few fill-ins that we’d decided to try (like Jim-E Stacks). We briefly stopped by for Carmine P. Filthy’s set (prominently featuring this guy, so Matt and I didn’t stay for long); it was pretty repetitive. I caught a few minutes of Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, enough to decide that I’d give them a shot on Spotify. We connected with my cousin, world-famous sound guy and international man of mystery Chris Bloch. He got us into the mixing truck for Chicano Batman‘s set, where he spent a good chunk of time answering our stupid questions about audio production and mixing. As a bonus, I found that I quite liked the band’s mix of Afro-Brazilian-surf funk, so they’re now in my Spotify rotation. Another neat discovery: The Features put on quite a show near the hot chocolate place (though it took me a while to figure out they were singing “Golden Comb“, not “Golden Cone”).

DSC 0974

Chris hard at work; yes, he really does know what all those knobs do.

Tom went to the AWOLNATION show and went crowd surfing, which excited him no end. The rest of us used the time to explore the food booths; I had a couple of really delicious crawfish pies, while David had shwarma and Matt a hot dog. We migrated over to the Metallica area about 30 minutes before their show and got decent seats in front of the sound tower (though the two older boys didn’t stay there; they ended up in the mosh pit.) As for the Metallica concert itself: it exceeded my expectations, especially given that they were replacing Green Day, a band I’ve never really liked. They deployed some awesome pyrotechnics for “One”, and gave us a nice mix of old and new(er) stuff, including “Master of Puppets,” “Wherever I May Roam,” “Enter Sandman,” and “Nothing Else Matters.” For their first encore they came out and started playing “American Idiot” by Green Day then stopped– James said, with mock sheepishness, “That’s all we had time to learn” before launching into some back-catalog stuff, closing with “Seek and Destroy.”

DSC 0990

rock is serious business

DSC 1000

Lars looks suspiciously like my friend Scott Mikesell

DSC 1020

they were having almost as much fun as the crowd

After a solid two-hour performance, all of us were flat worn out. We went back to the hotel and got to bed about midnight, which was lucky given that we had made plans to meet Chris and Beth at Café du Monde the next morning at 7:30. The promise of beignets was enough to get the herd moving, and we enjoyed our bounty sitting on the levee steps overlooking the river and watching the sun right near Jackson Square.

IMG 1248After breakfast, we went back to the hotel to shower and pack; the stage acts weren’t scheduled to start until noon, so I figured we’d have time to go to Radosta’s for poboys. Nope– they’re closed on Sundays, so we drove back to the Quarter to go to Coop’s. Nope, they’re a 21-and-up place. We ended up eating more festival food, to which absolutely no one objected. We’d planned to see Dev, who never showed up– she couldn’t get out of NYC because of Hurricane Sandy. No one announced that to the crowd, unfortunately, so we waited around for a while and then eventually wandered off. (The excellent Voodoo mobile app did have a tiny scrolling ticker at the bottom of its main page that announced the news, but I’m not sure anyone actually saw it.)

We were soon back to the EDM stage for Modestep, self-described as a “live four-piece bass-heavy band from London.” They sure were! However, there was enough swearing that I made Matt leave about half an hour into the show, which was too bad– it was excellent otherwise. Plus they were playing in full sunlight, which was not only very pleasant but provided superb lighting for taking pictures.

DSC 1050

 this makes me think of John McEnroe saying “you cannot be serious”

DSC 1064someone’s having a good day at work

More festival dinner, then it was time to head over to Skrillex! The crowd for his show was huge– probably 2/3 as large as Metallica’s, but in a much smaller area. We all packed up towards the front, which was fantastic until the crowd started squeezing us. Even that was OK because we were all dancing more or less in unison. Even the crowd surfers were fun… until one of them got dropped more or less on Matt’s head. After that, he and I watched the rest of the show from a more open space towards the back of the crowd. I was far enough away that after it got dark none of my pictures were really spectacular; this is probably the best of the lot.

DSC 1071

He played an absolutely killer set, including a remix of the theme from “The Fresh Prince” and a variety of his own songs. I was worn out from dancing by the end of the set, which is a sure measure of how good it was– it takes quite a performance to get me to shake my groove thang. (But don’t take my word for it; see this review.)

Immediately after the Skrillex set, we went back to the parking lot and drove straight through, arriving back in Huntsville about 2:45am. Matt and Tom slept pretty much the whole way; David lasted until about 12:45 and he zonked out too. Great time, and maybe we’ll do it again next year. The End.

Leave a comment

Filed under Friends & Family, General Stuff, Reviews, Travel

2012/09/18 · 18:30

Travel roulette: do you feel lucky?

luckypunk Well, do ya?
That’s the question I am asking myself right now. I’m scheduled to fly to Huntsville Friday, on American. Only American is having a bit of an issue with their pilots.
See, the pilots are angry (not without justification) that AA has abrogated their contract and imposed a new one. Under the National Railway Labor Act, airline pilots can’t strike without jumping through a bunch of hoops. What they can do, however, is work strictly to rules. That means customer-friendly actions like calling in sick, slowing down taxi speeds, and refusing to leave the gate unless every single open maintenance item, including things like broken armrests, are fixed.

“We’re just following the rules,” say the pilots.

“Grrrrr,” say the passengers.

The result is that American’s on-time performance has cratered. Yesterday a whopping 54% of their flights out of SFO were delayed, with nearly 25% of the delays being longer than 45 minutes. A full third of American’s flights ex DFW were delayed longer than 45 minutes.

Having already done their worst to threaten the pilots, American’s options are limited. They’re proactively starting to cancel flights. This, of course, causes all sorts of problems for passengers… like me.

Here are my choices:

  • I can stick with my existing flight. It might or might not be delayed due to “maintenance” or other shenanigans. (Of course, since I’m flying out of SFO there’s a non-zero chance that it’d be delayed anyway.) The problem here: a pilot who calls in sick on the, say, BNA-DFW run might delay the airplane that’s supposed to come to SFO and get me, so even if the crews assigned to SFO are behaving themselves I might still get hosed.
  • I can switch to an earlier flight on American, thus giving myself some insurance in case shenanigans come to pass. I still might get hosed. That would mean I’d miss the planned flyover of Endeavour at Moffett Field, which would really aggravate me; it’s a once-in-a-lifetime deal. Plus I might still get delayed.
  • I can cancel my American ticket and buy a $400+ one-way ticket on Delta or United (there are no frequent flyer seats available except on the redeye). I wouldn’t get delayed, but I’d probably have to miss the flyover.

None of these are great choices, which is why I still haven’t decided what to do. I guess I’ll keep an eye on FlightStats and see what the cancellation / delay rate looks like tomorrow. The Wall Street Journal’s air travel columnist is telling people to book away from AA, and that’s what I’m leaning towards doing at this point even though it’s expensive; if I have to take a 12+ hour delay and miss that time with the boys, well, you can’t put a price on that.

Historical note: back in 1998, Northwest Airlines went on strike, stranding a member of my then-wife’s family at our house for two excruciating weeks. I swore to stop flying NWA, and I didn’t for nearly 7 years. Hose me, American, and you’ll be next.

1 Comment

Filed under Travel

2012/06/22 · 10:31

A strong recommendation for TripIt Pro

I travel a good bit: not as many as some folks I know (such as Scott Schnoll, Tony Redmond, or other members of the far-flung Exchange tribe), nor as much as I used to, but at least a couple of times a month I’m on a plane heading somewhere– often to Huntsville to see my sons.

On my last trip I had a bit of hassle occasioned by a crew availability issue. The problem: I have to be at my office all day (long story), so I need as late a flight as possible on Friday. That means the 2:20p departure from SFO to Dallas, then a connection on to Huntsville.. but with only a 40-minute connection time, any serious delay ex-SFO means I’m going to be stuck.

I thus decided to try TripIt Pro. I have happily used their free service for several years; it’s the best way that I’ve found to organize and keep track of travel itineraries. All I have to do is forward confirmation mails to plans@tripit.com and they magically appear in my mobile client, neatly sorted by trip and time. The Pro service costs $49 a year, but it offers several interesting features, including an alert service that promises to notify you of delays and the ability to notify you if the fare for a trip decreases.

This morning, I called American at about 9:45a to request an upgrade for my 2:20p flight. I got that done with no problem. By the time I got back to my desk, here’s what I saw in my inbox:

tripitpro

Sure enough, due to SFO weather (which was delaying inbound aircraft), my outbound flight was delayed by long enough to make me miss the Huntsville connection. The “Alternate Flights” link showed me all of my flight options, and I was able to call American and get an agent to rebook me to an earlier flight. Notably, at no time did American themselves send me a notification of the delay– no text message, no e-mail, no nothing. This is despite the fact that I’m signed up for, and usually receive, flight status updates from AA.

While I admire the potential of getting a notification telling me “oh, your fare decreased,” the notification feature just saved my bacon for this trip– well worth the $50. If you travel more than a few times a year, I strongly encourage you to look into TripIt Pro (which has a 30-day free trial). I am now a convert.

1 Comment

Filed under Travel

2012/06/11 · 23:40

A tough travel experience

If you travel often, then you know something that more casual travelers often never learn: the law of averages always catches up with you in the end. Case in point: this weekend I went to Huntsville to visit the boys. I was scheduled to fly on American SFO-DFW-HSV on a Friday afternoon. My outbound flight was scheduled to leave at 2:20pm, and I had about a 40-minute connection for my DFW-HSV flight– the last one of the day.

This particular afternoon, SFO was windy– 31 knots gusting to 36. When I got to the airport, I noticed my outbound flight was delayed. Even though the airplane itself was there, the flight attendants were coming in on another flight, which had been delayed because of the wind. The delay was long enough that by the time the flight left, I would have missed my Huntsville flight and thus been consigned to spend the night in Dallas. The American gate agent helpfully offered to put me on a United flight SFO-DEN-HSV, so I let her and took off at a dead run for Terminal 3, where United/Continental’s SFO flights (mostly) leave from (some are now in Terminal 1, as I soon learned.) However, I only had about 25 minutes to exit terminal 2, enter terminal 3, clear security, and board the flight– clearly not possible. I found a helpful United agent who led me to the “additional services” desk. After a rather lengthy wait, which gave me a good chance to see how disorganized UA’s current SFO operations are, I spoke with an agent who told me I’d have to go back to American to get rerouted again… so I did. I ended up on the redeye SFO-ORD, which connected to a Huntsville flight that got me in about 10:20 the next morning– so only about 12 hours later than planned.

The flights were uneventful, but then when I got to Huntsville I discovered that my luggage was still in Chicago. Ooops. I gave the ticket agent a delivery address for my bag, picked up my rental car, got the boys, and went to the hotel. Later in the day, I noticed that large clouds of white smoke were coming out of the rental car whenever the engine exceeded about 3500 rpm. I called Avis and they quickly sent over a replacement, so that went well. It ended up being quite a good weekend, but it certainly reminded me that when you travel, you will occasionally, and inevitably, end up with a trip with a much higher than average hassle factor. Such is life. All things considered, this one wasn’t too bad; I was only 12 hours late and didn’t have any real major problems, just a string of annoyances. Hopefully now things will revert to the norm of trouble-free travel.

(Oh, and as I write this, I’m on an American flight DFW-SFO. It’s a new-ish 737-800, which means that it has in-seat power in coach. For some inexplicable reason, though, it does not have Gogo wifi. For some reason I always assume that such a new aircraft will have wi-fi. Delta has spoiled me in that regard, I suppose…)

Leave a comment

Filed under Musings, Travel

2012/04/27 · 09:47

“See something, say something” stupidity?

This week a Delta Air Lines flight from Detroit to Chicago was quarantined upon arrival by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Why? Because CDC thought the woman might have monkeypox. Why on earth would they think that? Therein lies the story.

First off: according to the CDC themselves, monkeypox kills between 1% and 10% of people in Africa who contract it. So, it’s worse than chickenpox, but not up to the level of Marburg or ebola. 

So, Lise Sievers went to Africa to work on her pending adoption of two special-needs children. During the four months she was there, she developed what the Minneapolis Star-Tribune  describes as a “bad rash” that she thinks was caused by bedbugs. One of the boys she’s adopting also has what her son, Roger, described as “pus-filled bumps.” Still with me? Lise has a rash. Her son-to-be has bumps.

In a phone call with her mother, Lise mentioned the rash and the bumps. Her mother, no doubt with the best of intentions, called a local hospital and asked them (and I’m paraphrasing here) “What kind of treatment do you need to get if you’ve been in Africa and have pus-filled bumps on your skin?” I’m sure that the hospital staff jumped at the chance to make a diagnosis over the phone; I hear doctors love that stuff. Anyway, somehow the story got garbled until the hospital staff thought that Lise, the passenger, had the pus-filled bumps. At some point, a bright star at the hospital decided “hey, this might be monkeypox,” so they did the natural thing: they called CDC… who then quarantined the airplane for a couple of hours. 

Is this a “better safe than sorry” thing, or an ignorant overreaction?

I don’t blame Lise’s mom; here’s what Lise’s son Roger had to say (a textbook example of “Minnesota nice” if I’ve ever seen it):

“It was all misinformation from a speculative call that my grandmother made,” Roger Sievers said. “She’s just a concerned old lady. As sweet as can be. And she makes a mean banana bread, I can tell you that right now.”

It should be said that I bow to no one in my respect for the CDC, particularly their Special Pathogens Branch, nor my desire to avoid a pandemic. However, if I recall, we weren’t even quarantining entire airplanes when there were known cases of H1N1 or SARS aboard. This seems like a bit of an overreaction to say the least. The CDC’s page on airline travel sets out their requirements for cabin or flight  crew aboard an airplane who suspect that someone aboard has communicable illness: basically the pilot’s supposed to call ATC and tell ’em that someone aboard has Belgian waffle disease or whatever. Seems reasonable enough.

On the other hand, it sure does seem like the hospital people jumped the gun a bit. This seems like a textbook case of “if you see something, say something” carried to an extreme. At least I can take some comfort from the fact that the TSA wasn’t involved.

(Bonus for those who read to the end: The Last Psychiatrist’s review of Contagion. Contains spoilers.)

Leave a comment

Filed under General Stuff, Musings, Travel

2012/04/05 · 08:48

Thursday trivia #55

  • The Marines have landed in Darwin, Australia, and the situation is well in hand. I had an interesting discussion with a coworker about whether this was a provocation of the Chinese or a necessary move to register our continued interest in the Pacific Rim. I lean towards the latter, but not everyone agrees.
  • I’ve finally started watching Game of Thrones after having read all of the books. So far I’m delighted, in particular by the characterizations. Barristan Selmy, Syrio Forel, and a host of other characters are very much as I imagined them, and the set design is superb. (However, I did wonder why all the characters have British accents. The BBC has one possible answer.)
  • Why’d I take the plunge? U-Verse had a promotion: 3 months of free HBO. I signed up and immediately fired up the HBO Go app on my Xbox. It works superbly, including Kinect integration for voice control. The HBO Go app also works well on my Mac, so I connected it to the hotel-room TV here in San Diego and watched Game of Thrones on it too. WELCOME TO THE FUTURE.
  • I really like the new Trending app for iOS. It combines stock data with news about the companies in your portfolio. Since it’s free, go get it.
  • Fascinating story on ferries in Alaska. There’s more to it than you might have suspected.
  • Scalzi’s Fuzzy Nation: fun, quick read. Recommended.
  • Today’s fun cloud computing game: anyone can play.
  • Tuesday and Wednesday I went running at Shoreline Park in San Diego. It was beautiful: sunshine, sailboats, a few SH-60s. Here’s a panorama I took with Photosynth:

http://photosynth.net/embed.aspx?cid=d26f798e-29b5-428c-b7de-daa1632a21f1&delayLoad=true&slideShowPlaying=false

Leave a comment

Filed under Friends & Family, Musings, Travel

2012/02/21 · 12:02

Happy Mardi Gras

The boys and I are just back from a wonderful trip to South Louisiana for a mini-family reunion. Missie started the ball rolling a few months ago, so I made precautionary hotel reservations just in case. Things worked out beautifully– the boys had Friday and Monday off, so I picked them up in Montgomery Thursday night, and we stayed overnight in Mobile. Friday morning, we got up and drove to Houma; along the way we stopped at the National World War II Museum. I’d been there before, but the boys hadn’t, and they were pretty much wide-eyed throughout the entire tour. A stop in Luling for a shrimp poboy, and poof! we were in Houma.

That night we went to the Krewe of Aphrodite parade. In case you hadn’t guessed, this krewe’s court is all-female, and all the floats were crewed by women. I’m not sure if that was a factor in the boys’ massive haul of beads, but it could have been. We all had a grand time; we then joined Doug, Shawn, Missie, Jody, and the girls for Mexican.

DSC 0657

the boys ended up heavily laden with beads, plus all sorts of other random paraphernalia.

DSC 0651

sadly, Piranha Rentals doesn’t actually rent piranhas.

DSC 0654

not actual size

Saturday drove around to check out Houma, which has grown quite a bit since my last visit– to say nothing of how much it’s grown since I lived there. Terrebonne Parish as a whole had about 94,000 people in 1980, shortly before I moved away. The 2010 census says it now has around 112,000 people, but that seems low based on the size and bustle of what used to be a fairly quiet small town. We were supposed to marshal at Mr. Poboy (which I highly recommend), but we had some time to kill. I decided to drive out towards the airport, and what a good decision that turned out to be!

As we were driving, I saw what looked like a DC-3… then another one… then some other large propellor transport, all parked behind a hangar labeled “AIRBORNE SUPPORT.” We drove over to their hangar, and after a little poking around a gentleman (whose name, sadly, I didn’t write down) came out and offered us a tour of their operations. At first, he asked if we were with the media; I later learned that various media organizations were using shotgun mikes, pole-mounted cameras, and other surveillance devices to eavesdrop on their operations during cleanup of the BP Macondo oil spill. Once he was satisfied that we weren’t part of any sinister plots, he could not have been more helpful and friendly. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Airborne Support is a contractor that provides aerial spraying services to Clean Gulf Associates, an oil-industry-funded non-profit that maintains emergency response equipment and staff for spill cleanup. I’ll have to read up more on both of them when I have time.

DSC 0664

The aircraft shown above is one of the DC-3s we saw (its web page is here.). More properly, it’s actually a C-47A, the military variant of the DC-3. This one was built in 1944 and is still flying! That’s not uncommon, as aircraft have a much longer life than most people realize. It’s fitted with a large tank that holds chemical dispersant; the spray plane flies at low altitude (30-50 feet above the water) and sprays in a pattern determined by a spotter plane flying at a higher altitude. The interior is bare-bones: there’s a big tank for the dispersant and that’s it. The cockpit below is mostly original, too, with the addition of a Garmin 530, some 1970s-vintage radios, and an overhead-mounted agricultural specialty GPS. The seats, yokes, and so on are all original, though.

DSC 0658

my sons have the rare distinction of having been both in the cockpit of an operational DC-3 and the captain’s chair of a Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier


After the tour, we joined the family at Mr. Poboy for an excellent meal. I had the fried shrimp poboy, which was served with excellent soft French bread. The shrimp were apparently fried in Zatarain’s, which is my go-to seasoning, and were plentiful and of good texture. (I wasn’t sold on the fries, though; our Luling gas station fries were better). Then we went over to Ricky’s house, where Ricky and Carey cooked up two huge pots of food: seafood gumbo and pastalaya respectively. Both were superb, as was the lemon icebox pie that someone made (I’m not sure who, but it was certainly good).

DSC 0665

Carey’s pastalaya pot is almost, but not quite, big enough to cook a small child in. Sadly you can’t see Ricky’s epic two-burner cooking stand but it was busy too.

One of the things I love about visiting my family is that it’s a given that all the men can cook well. I am by far the worst male cook in my family, but I’m working on it!

We stayed at Ricky’s until well after dark; the steady, heavy rain didn’t dampen our spirits, although it did force cancellation of the scheduled parades. We were too full to care, however. Sunday morning we had breakfast en masse at Waffle House, conveniently located next to our hotel, then went in search of another parade– this one the Krewe of Terraneans. We stayed for the first four or five floats, then headed west for A Cajun Man’s Swamp Tour, run by Black Guidry. I’d taken the boys on it before several years ago, and I don’t think Black’s jokes have changed much since then, but we got some great looks at wildlife, including turtles, young alligators, and nutria. The weather had cleared by the time we left the dock and it was clear, sunny, and very pleasant out on the water.

DSC 0699Capt. Guidry playing his Cajun accordion

DSC 0693

A third turtle decamped the log just as I was pressing the shutter button.

DSC 0696

He looks pretty comfortable, doesn’t he?

Sunday night we had dinner at Boudreau & Thibodeaux’s in Houma. The food was excellent, and the wait staff did their best to feed all 30 of us in a reasonable amount of time. I had some delicious grilled catfish and a small number of Tom’s two pounds of crawfish. He certainly did them justice, as you can see in the before-and-after pictures below.

IMG 0669

IMG 0670

Monday all we did was drive back: Houma to Montgomery for me to drop the boys off, then back to Pensacola: just under 500 statute miles all told. Great trip, and we’re all looking forward to doing it again next year!

Leave a comment

Filed under aviation, Friends & Family, Travel

2011/12/31 · 18:16

Cruising for Christmas, part 2

(See part 1 for the beginning of our Christmas cruise adventure. One note: I failed to mention how much we all loved the conch fritters at Caroline’s in Key West. I’d never had them before but look forward to having them again.)

Our at-sea day on Boxing Day was uneventful; the boys spent much of the day hanging out in their various clubs, while I parked myself with a good book on the fantail in the “Serenity” adults-only area. There were a lot of noisy young adults there, but it was quite a bit more pleasant than the high-noise, high-traffic area around the pool on the Lido deck, plus the view from the stern of the ship was stunning. For our elegant dinner that night, we had lobster and alligator fritters,  both of which were very, very popular with all four of us.

I actually forgot to mention the high point of our first sea day. David and I signed up for the “Behind the Fun” tour, a $55, 3-hour tour of several “backstage” areas on the ship. The tour includes the ship’s laundry (staffed exclusively by Indonesians, as are all Carnival ships; there’s sort of an unofficial Indonesian mafia that finds jobs for family members, fellow villagers, etc.), the kitchen (which is huge, spotless, and busy), the engine control room (crewed by a chief engineer who perfectly fit the stereotype of a brusque, grease-stained technophile), and the ship’s bridge, where we got to meet the captain and a couple of other deck officers. The whole thing was fascinating; we learned a ton about the operations that take place behind the scenes and that helped us better appreciate the largely invisible efforts that the staff has to make to keep everything running smoothly.

On the 27th, we made port in Nassau, which is where we’d booked two major activities: a Segway beach tour and a visit with the Bahamian Ministry of Tourism’s “People to People” program. I’d read about both of these on CruiseCritic, and the four of us were all excited about them both. Sadly, the People-to-People meeting never materialized. I registered on 11 December and never heard anything back until the 20th or so; I immediately answered the email I got from them but never heard back. We met the van from  Bahamas Segway and Beach Experience promptly at 0930 and were richly entertained by Meeks, our driver, on the 15-minute van ride to the nature preserve. This is a bit of a grandiose term; it’s really a nearly 200-acre plot that was originally supposed to be a resort before ownership and tax disputes put the land into a title dispute from which it hasn’t recovered. In any event, the property is gorgeous, with a number of nature trails and a gorgeous area where we stopped to recharge the Segways and learn how to plait palm fronds (seriously! one of the other tour attendees was from Jamaica and taught all 3 boys how to do it.)

IMG 0520

The four of us at the Segway beach area

The experience of riding the Segway itself was fantastic! My only complaint is that I was going too fast, hit a soft spot in the trail, overcorrected, and went flying– it is, in fact, possible to wreck a Segway. Fortunately the expensive Segway was undamaged; I wound up with a sore neck, a broken camera, and wounded pride, but nothing too serious. Despite that, the whole Segway experience was superb; the tour company did a great job, the weather could not have been nicer, and riding the Segway itself is a blast. I recommend this tour very, very highly.

People-to-People? Not so much. Despite all my efforts, I couldn’t get hold of an actual human until the morning of our arrival, and they had no record of our visit. The lady I spoke to was quite apologetic and tried really hard to find someone for us, but she didn’t succeed until nearly 1pm, when we were just sitting down to order lunch. With a requirement to be back aboard ship at 5pm, there was no way to make it work, which was really disappointing. Maybe next time.

We had lunch at the Fish Fry, a strip of restaurants right outside downtown Nassau. I don’t remember the name of the place where we ate, but the food– conch, shrimp, and grouper, all fried– was superb. After lunch, we walked the 1.5 miles or so back to the cruise ship pier, going past Junkanoo Beach. It was a beautiful walk along the water, as you can see from the two pictures below.

IMG 0530

The view from Junkanoo Beach out towards the water

IMG 0532

Another view, this one towards the cruise ship pier

Of course, these pics (and all the others from this point on) came from my iPhone, since my D40 wouldn’t admit that there was a lens connected to it. It is now on its way back to Nikon’s body and fender shop; if they can’t fix it for a reasonable cost I’ll pick up either a D3100 or a D5100.

On the 28th, we were due into Freeport at 0800. I woke up about 0735 and went forward but didn’t see land anywhere. What I did find was wind gusting 15-25 knots. Sure enough, the winds in Freeport were too high for us to safely dock, so we had another sea day instead. This was disappointing, as we’d booked a bottom-fishing expedition that promised barracuda, shark, and other fun sea life. However, we all had a good day playing Uno, drinking too much soda, and generally taking advantage of all the services aboard the ship.

Debarkation on the 29th was quite smooth. Our cabins were both on the Verandah deck inboard; we had V12 and V20, which were nicely appointed and very convenient to the observation area. Because we were first-time Carnival cruisers on a discount fare, we were assigned a debarkation number of 2 (out of 30 or so). This was great, since we wanted to get back to Pensacola, not linger on the ship like the long-time cruisers. After a delicious breakfast, they called our group and within 20 minutes we were out and waiting for the Avis shuttle van. The debarkation and customs process was flawless and quick.

Service and staffing, overall, were on a par with Disney and Princess. I thought that Princess had the best dining room staff and cabin stewards, but Carnival’s were quite good. For the price we paid, the accommodations and service were quite good, and I would happily cruise with Carnival again– hopefully soon!

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Friends & Family, Travel

2011/12/29 · 18:53

Cruising for Christmas, part 1

So this year I wanted to do something different with the boys. Arlene and I have been able to work together to share the boys during holidays, long weekends, and so on, and when she offered me some extra time with the boys over their Christmas break I jumped at the chance. David wanted to stay in Huntsville with his girlfriend; no one wanted to go to California, and I was not going to spend Christmas in a hotel room. After talking it over with them in some depth, we decided to take a cruise.

Thanks to the fine folks at VacationsToGo, we identified the 24 December sailing of the Carnival Ecstasy as our best bet. Alexander, our travel agent, did a superb job. This is my second booking with VacationsToGo, and it won’t be the last. We got what I considered to be a great price on the cruise, and Alexander handled all the arrangements because I was locked in The Bunker during most of the planning period.

We were set to depart Port Canaveral on Christmas Eve. After a long drive from Montgomery to Valdosta to Cocoa Beach, we stopped at the KSC Visitors’ Center for the big KSC tour. Unfortunately, we missed the last tour bus, though we did get to go ice skating (or, more precisely, the boys did; I was having no part of that.) The tickets were very expensive relative to what you get (~ $43/person), and I didn’t feel like the exhibits were worth the money. They also don’t accept a Space and Rocket Center membership as reciprocal, which is too bad.

DSC 0531

Tom, cold-chillin’ on the ice at the KSC mini-rink

One of the fun things about our KSC visit was the holiday decorations; the rocket garden had a huge tree, and there were decorations at the ISS mural as well.

DSC 0529

your tax dollars at work

IMG 0469

Closest I’ll ever get to the ISS

When we were done at KSC, we settled in at the International Palms Resort in Cocoa Beach, which I found through Kayak. For $53 a night, it was quite decent, although not fancy. We didn’t use any of the “resort” features, which include a basketball court and a boardwalk leading to the beach. Instead, we went to do some last-minute Christmas shopping at Walmart, a process which we reprised the next morning at both Walmart and Merritt Square Mall. Once all the shopping was done, we dropped our rental car off at Avis in Cocoa Beach and took their shuttle to the cruise ship terminal. Note: if you’re thinking about doing the same thing, be forewarned that the Avis staff was completely overwhelmed when we were there. We waited nearly an hour for the right shuttle, and the staff was just flappin’. They were obviously in a rush to get everything done before they closed, but their customer service suffered as a result.

The boarding process went smoothly and fairly quickly. We got aboard and started exploring the ship, which has a sort of metro-art-deco feel to it. Lots of neon (and faux neon), etc. I didn’t especially care for it. I think the ship, which was built in ’91, is showing its age, and I vaguely remember that Carnival is planning on refurbishing it in the near future. Anyway, we got settled in fairly fast, although our luggage didn’t show up until much later. At dinner, we met our table companions: a couple from upstate New York and a mother (with a daughter and two sons, all older than my boys) from Shreveport. David, Tom, and I all ordered escargot as an appetizer, and Matt tried them and decided that he liked them too– score!

Christmas Day was a blast. We opened presents in the morning, then made port in Key West and set out for our snorkeling trip, booked through Fury Watersports. I recommend them highly: great equipment and a superbly friendly staff made them a great choice. The snorkeling itself was eventful. Tom was one of the first ones in the water, and he was the first one out after an encounter with a Portuguese man-o-war. Then David got in, then Matt and I. Matt was very reluctant after Tom’s sting, and even with gentle encouragement from Missy (one of the boat crew; she did a great job with Matt) he wasn’t having any. Shortly thereafter I got stung by a moon jellyfish, and then David poked one accidentally and got stung on the finger. The snorkeling itself was anticlimax; I didn’t see anything except a few grouper. The weather and water were gorgeous though, and I loved being out on the water.

DSC 0543

David in full snorkeling regalia


 

DSC 0545

Matt and I get ready to get in the water

 

 

DSC 0550

Tom and Missy on the snorkel boat

After we made it back to Key West, we had a delicious lunch of conch fritters and shrimp poboys at Caroline’s, walked around Duval Street for a while, and had superb key lime pie at the Key West Key Lime Pie Company. At lunch, Matt pulled his own tooth, so that was his injury du jour— more permanent than a jellyfish sting. Back aboard ship, we had dinner, and the boys went to parties at their individual age clubs. Carnival, like Disney, has clubs for various age groups. David and Tom very quickly took to their peers; Matt thought the activities for his age group were lame, probably because he thinks he’s as old as his brothers (and partly because they were kinda lame by comparison.) Surprisingly, Christmas wasn’t an occasion for an elegant or formal night, although the food and service were excellent. (I should take this opportunity to point out that the ship was decorated quite nicely for the holidays– lots of tinsel, lights, Christmas ornaments, and so on.)

This is getting a bit long, so I’ll wrap it up in a second post once I’ve had a bit of recovery time. We just got back to Pensacola today and I need a bit of a respite from my vacation…

Leave a comment

Filed under Friends & Family, Travel

2011/08/20 · 16:21

AutoSlash and why you should be using it

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you probably know about travel sites that focus on airfare and hotels. Priceline, of course, has become a pop-culture icon (thanks to good ol’ Mr. Shatner), and Kayak, which I’ve used since before its official launch, has been advertising heavily too. Then there’s Expedia, Hotels.com, and a host of others.

Most of the innovation in this space has focused on air travel. This makes sense, given that it’s probably the biggest travel expense most of us are likely to run into. The now-familiar matrix map is just one example; for another, check out Hipmunk‘s unique method of showing flights based on the degree of agony they cause.

However, I haven’t been pleased with the state of car rental bookings until now. Each rental company has their own site, and they all tend to be brittle, ugly, and hard to navigate. Enter AutoSlash, a car rental search engine that has a simple, clean layout for booking cars. “Big deal,” you say. “I don’t mind clumsy web sites if they save me a few bucks.” That’s the real value of AutoSlash: once you book a reservation, their engine continues to search for a better deal. For example, I just reserved a car for an upcoming trip. I got a better rate from AutoSlash than using the super-discount code I normally use with Avis. About 15 minutes later, I got an e-mail from AutoSlash that said:

We found a better rate on your upcoming Hertz rental in Seattle on 9/17/2011 (AutoSlash Trip ID: XXXXXXXXX).
You were originally booked at $132.61, and the price has now dropped to $110.19. We’ve automatically re-booked your rental at the lower rate. You’ve saved $22.42 without even lifting a finger!

So, let’s recap: with zero effort on my part, these guys saved me enough money to buy myself dinner and a movie! There are other sites, like Yapta, that purport to do the same thing for airfares, but there the complication is that airlines typically charge a stiff change fee. In fairness, Yapta, FareCompare, and their ilk are great for tracking fares to see how much they cost before you buy, or checking historical price records, but they don’t often save you any actual money. Orbitz does something similar for hotel bookings, but (at least with Marriott and Hilton) you often get better deals booking directly with the hotel property instead of using a search site, so I’ve never actually gotten any money back from them.

AutoSlash is how I’ll be doing my rental car bookings from now on. Because it’s free, I encourage you to try it too. (I’m just a happy customer; they’re not paying me or anything.)

1 Comment

Filed under Travel

2011/07/11 · 07:25

Returning to Huntsville

This weekend was my first visit back to Huntsville in many years– I think the last time I was there was in 2005 or so. I will be visiting there regularly to see the boys, and eventually relocating there, so I was quite curious about what had become of the place.

I was scheduled to fly AA SFO-DFW-HSV, arriving about 10pm. AA was kind enough to match my Delta Platinum Medallion status and make me an AAdvantage Platinum, the equivalent of Delta’s Gold Medallion. Unlike DL, which gives their elite members unlimited access to upgrades, on AA Platinum and Gold elites have to buy 500-mile upgrade coupons– so a 1000-mile flight needs two coupons, a 1501-mile flight needs 4, and so on. I elected to request upgrades for the SFO-DFW and DFW-SFO legs, since the DFW-HSV leg is short enough not to bother with.

My flight ex SFO left 25 minutes late, with no announcements or explanation. Surprisingly, the aircraft I was on, a 757, didn’t have onboard Wi-Fi. That’s something Delta has led me to expect on pretty much every flight; even on what must be a heavily traveled route with lots of business customers, AA didn’t provide Wi-Fi equipment. Luckily, though, the plane did have in-seat power, using a standard 3-prong outlet, so I was able to plug in and get some work done en route.

Unfortunately, my flight DFW-HSV was delayed by an hour, so I didn’t get to pick the boys up until nearly 11:30pm. I had in mind that we’d make a tradition out of going straight to Dairy Queen each time I picked the boys up for a visit, but unfortunately I forgot to inform the local DQ, which closes at 10pm sharp. Luckily we went to Sonic instead. Thus began a great weekend. We ate well and thoroughly enjoyed each others’ company (well, except for a few minor fraternal disputes, but those are par for the course.)

One of the highlights of the trip for me was a return visit to the US Space and Rocket Center, one of my all-time favorite museums. They have completely redesigned the place since my last visit; there’s a beautiful new building that houses the Saturn V that used to be out on the back lawn, rusting away. It’s been repainted and refreshed and now occupies a place of honor in the main hall– as it should. We saw “Legends of Flight” (needs moar 787) at the IMAX theater and “Sea Rex” (not bad; fairly educational, though the 3-D effects made the picture a bit dim) at the 3-D theater in the new building.

Another highlight was the huge thunderstorm system that swept through Madison Sunday night. As I was driving the boys back to their mom’s house we were marveling at the lightning strikes, which were frequent, violent, and intense. The rain was so heavy that I had to slow down to below 20mph. This morning I learned that the storm had claimed a casualty in the form of one of Bo’s neighbors. That tempered my enjoyment quite a bit, but it was still quite a dramatic show– something we just don’t get in the Bay Area, along with good BBQ, Dairy Queen, and decent rock radio stations (why does Huntsville have 2 while the huge SF market has none? beats me!)

We made it out to KMDQ to have a look around; I got my first look at a G1000-equipped Cessna 172 (which rents for only $140/hour– considerably less than at KPAO!) I learned that, payload considerations aside, there’s no way to shoehorn me and the 3 boys into a 172, and I saw some really interesting “for sale” notices on the bulletin board. More on that another time.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a trip report if I didn’t talk about food. I was surprised to see which restaurants had survived since I moved away and which hadn’t. No more Green Hills Grille, for example, and Tim’s Cajun Kitchen was closed when we went there (turns out they’re still operating, just not on Sunday evenings). Kings Buffet in Madison lives on, as does Ivey’s. Even Tai Pan (formerly known as “Tight Pants”), my old standby Chinese place near Intergraph, is still there. The rest of the area has grown tremendously overall, too; the airport was booming when I left this morning, and there’s all sorts of new construction, including Bridge Street, a swank open-air shopping center near Research Park, and a ton of new defense contractors sprouting around various parts of town. More on the military-industrial aspect of Huntsville another time; for now suffice to say that drone wars are apparently quite good for business.

I’ll be heading back in a couple of weeks to see the boys again; this time I’ll do a bit more research to look for some specific places I remember.

4 Comments

Filed under Travel

Tagged as

2011/07/10 · 07:46

DC day 4

[OK, so I am terribly delinquent about not posting this, y’know, within a month of the actual trip. So sue me.]

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday. What a day!

Here’s what we did: the Capitol tour, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Air and Space Museum, and the Library of Congress. That’s a pretty full schedule. A few brief notes because I’m too tired to write a long post rhapsodizing about it all.

First, the Capitol: it’s quite imposing, but the tour was wonderful. The Great Hall is amazing, and the statuary gallery is quite striking as well. Unfortunately, our elected servants were taking an extended vacation so we didn’t get to tour the House or Senate chambers, but the building and grounds were well worth seeing.

I loved the Library of Congress. David thought it would be like a public library, only bigger, so he was somewhat disappointed that he couldn’t just waltz in and pick out an arbitrary book to read. However, there are a ton of interactive exhibits, including one that traced the development of the Gulf Coast under Spanish and French rule; that was worth a good look. The interactives are all computerized touch-screen kiosks that are very well done.

For lunch, we went to the National Museum of the American Indian. This was surprisingly interesting, although I was a bit saddened to see that there wasn’t much in the way of buffalo-related displays, although they did have a really nifty collection of Native American art . However, the Mitsitam Cafe there was probably the best place we ate all week. I had a pulled buffalo sandwich that was superb, and everything everyone else had– wild salmon, a buffalo burger, and I-forget-what-else– was well-prepared and tasty. (In fact we went back to the cafe later in the week for another lunch.) The cafe was packed, which is a pretty good indicator that we weren’t the only ones who liked it.

After our lunch it was time for the National Air and Space Museum. What a fantastic place! I’d been to the Udvar-Hazy Center before, which is excellent in its own right, but getting to see artifacts like the Wright Flyer and the Spirit of St. Louis literally sent chills up my spine. They even have UAVs now, as you can see from the photostream. David and I flew in a 2-man F-4 Phantom simulator and had a blast, scoring the highest number of kills for the day (a whopping, not really, 7.) Like all the other Smithsonian museums, NASM closes at 5pm, so we left and went back to the hotel for a swim.

For dinner, we walked over to the waterfront area just south of L’Enfant Plaza. There are a number of seafood stands there, and I’d heard it was a good place to eat. It would have been, too, had it not started to thunderstorm. We sought refuge inside Phillips Seafood Buffet, one of the only restaurants to actually offer indoor seating. The seafood was delicious, and I’m pretty sure, given the quantity we all ate, that we represented a net loss to the restaurant despite the stiff prices.

Then it was time to head back to the hotel (thankfully, it had stopped raining) for a little TV and rack time. We had to rest up for Thursday, which was going to pack a 1-2 punch.

Leave a comment

Filed under Friends & Family, Travel

Tagged as

2011/05/30 · 08:43

Legoland

Lego's version of the famous Houmas House

Lego’s version of the famous Houmas House

Legoland was 100% worth the trip!

We drove down from Morgan Hill on Friday, taking the I-5 route. Because of construction at CA-58, we were a bit delayed en route, so we stopped overnight at the Rodeway Inn in Castaic, CA. It was a bit dingy, but given that we arrived after midnight I was prepared to relax my standards a bit.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early and made a beeline for Legoland. We arrived shortly after the park opened, and it was surprisingly crowded. Legoland’s crowd skews pretty young; there were lots of under-6-year-olds.

Our first stop was the aquarium. We’re undoubtedly spoiled, but I found it mediocre. Had it not been included in our ticket price I might have been disappointed.

The park, however, was well worth the price of admission. The models are jaw-dropping (see my Flickr stream for a few examples from Miniland, the model city area.) The rides are clever and well-designed, although the lines were long because there’s no equivalent to Disney’s FastPass system.

The boys’ favorite was probably the large, well-appointed water park. I sat in the sun and relaxed while they shivered in the water and claimed that they weren’t cold (the lazy river’s heated, however.)

A note about Legoland food: mediocre and expensive. Take your own if you can.

We closed the joint down, which was easy given that it closes at 6. Our hotel, Carlsbad by the Sea, was delightful; clean, beautifully landscaped, and well located. Breakfast the next morning was included, too, always a plus.

I’m posting this from iBlogger on my phone, so this update is too short to capture the full flavor. Suffice it to say that I highly recommend Legoland.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Leave a comment

Filed under California, Travel