Made it!

After a really long and tiring, but uneventful trip, we are in New Zealand after only 23 hours of travel. We are having a lovely dinner at a place called Elliot stables, which is sort of an upscale food court. The restaurants are around the outside, the tables are in the middle and you order from the restaurants which then brings the food to your table. After this were going to go back to the hotel and crash. 

Hurry up and wait....

We had a lovely visit to Laguna Beach, saw my Dad as mentioned yesterday, and went to the Getty Museum this afternoon.  Absolutely gorgeous buildings, grounds and an incredible collection of art.  Much more than can be appreciated in just an afternoon, but it was a fun diversion.  Just as rush hour was beginning to hit it's stride, we headed back to the airport to turn in the rental car.  We allotted plenty of time, but even so, it took about one hour to travel ten miles.  This will not surprise our CA friends, but I just have to say to our Albuquerque folks that we have it pretty good traffic-wise.

I'm typing this on the iPad, and the pictures are all on Tom's phone, so I just went through a little half hour exercise in getting them sent via email to this device so I could post them.  Not very hard except it was a little tricky to get everything connected to the wifi here at the airport.  Anyway...here was our afternoon:

And, now we are at the airport very, very, very early whiling away our spare hours until we board the plane...about three more hours for that. At least they have free wifi, we can charge up our devices, and Tom has gone shopping while I guard the carry-on bags at our essentially empty gate.  Both of us freshened up and have put on our comfy clothes for the long 14 hour flight.  We'll have a 1-2 hour layover in Sydney and then a three hour flight to Auckland.  So basically, when you all get up Saturday morning and read this, we'll be less than halfway there, LOL.

Stopover number 1

We didn't go all that far, but we knew it when we started out. Landed at LAX without any trouble, had three seats for the two of us, got our bags, jumped on the Hertz shuttle, found the rental car and were on our way maneuvering through the LA freeway system within 45 minutes of landing.  Since when is LA that efficient??

 

53 minutes later we were at Dad's house having been told by Google maps that instead of the usual route (405 to 22) there was some traffic and it would be faster to take the parallel-ish route which was take the 405->105->605->91->5->22.We would never in a million years have thought to take that route instead, but it worked out to be faster than the direct 405.  Of course, the carpool lane helped immensely, too.

Had a very nice lunch and visit with Dad and Ilene and then jumped back in the rental car at 4:30 to try and make it to the condo in Laguna Beach.  Didn't think we had a prayer of making it by 5 when the office closed, but we got there with 6 minutes to spare.  At rush hour!  This is not the California road system either of us remember, nor the one many residents experience.

Made it to the condo and found we have an ocean view room after all...somebody checked out early and we got the room. 😄

That's all for now from our stopover for the night. This time tomorrow we will be checking in for our flights.

Here we go again....

Off to California, Australia, New Zealand

It's our Policy, I'm so sorry...

We are planning a little two-week getaway to Tucson.  Been planning it for well over 5 months, with much anticipation to try out one of the top-rated RV resorts down there.  They have all sorts of clubs from golf, hiking, biking, pickle ball, crafts, sewing, quilting, model railroads and who knows what.  Tons of 'em.  Then they have food; sometimes it is a potluck, or luncheon or food truck or BBQ or coffee and donuts.  There is hardly a day without some food event scheduled. Added to that are trips, such as visiting Tombstone, or the Kitt Peak Observatory, or the Pima Air and Space Museum or the GemShow this month.

So we anxiously await the publication of the monthly newsletter so we can select the activities we want to sign up for, and then we call the resort Activity Office:

us: Yes, we will be staying with you for two weeks starting on the 15 and we wanted to sign up for a couple of the trips you have.

Very Bubbly Cheery Person: Oh great, what trips?

Us: Kitt Peak, Tombstone and Pima

VBCP: Oh, two of those have fees.  Do you know anyone here at the resort who could come sign you up?

Us: No, but we could give you a credit card number

VBCP:  I'm sorry, we don't take credit cards in order to keep the costs down and credit cards have high fees.

Us: Not even just to hold it and we can pay you in cash when we get there? You took credit cards for the reservation, so I know you can process them occasionally.

VBCP: No, I'm sorry, we just can't do that.

Us: Well, how about we send you a check?

VBCP: Uhmmm, there are only three spaces left on the Pima trip and four on the Tombstone and Kitt peak is already full, so I cannot be sure there will be space when your check arrives.

Us: Well, how about putting us down for the Pima trip, that one is free.

VBCP: I'm really sorry, you have to sign up in person.

Us: But didn't you just tell me if we knew someone down there they could sign up for us?

VBCP: Yes, but they have to do it in person.  I'm really, really sorry. That is just the way it is.

Us:  Well, how about you sign us up 'in person'.

VBCP: I can't do that. I'm really, really, really sorry.

I can't wait to see how the rest of the tickets for the onsite events go.  We have an order form, which can be mailed, but am just pissed off enough that I am not sure I want to play with them anymore.

Surprise!

Tom had planned a little surprise lunch at a restaurant with all my California family.  Well, I sorta already knew it, because a few clues were left on scraps of paper sitting out, and I have much better hearing than Tom realizes, but I was going along with the plan.

Unfortunately, the real surprise was on us, as my brother called the night before and he had been really sick, throwing up.  We all figured it was a virus or food poisoning, and it had abated that day.  But that night it turned into intense pain and he called for a ride to the hospital at 4 am.  Turned out to be a kidney stone (1 mm too small to lithotripsy) so he was sent home with pills, instructions to drink water and be patient.  

Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, the rest of us met for lunch and had a wonderful meal.  I even got a handful of cake pops to celebrate with.  😄

Not exactly as planned, but we are here..

Set the alarm for 5 a.m. so we could get ready, shower, eat a quick breakfast and leave the house by 6 for a 7:45 flight. Alarm-not sure what happened but Cheryl woke up at 6:13 and we went into full panic mode: Tom showered but forgot to grab his watch or his phone.  Cheryl skipped the shower, but remembered her phone. Made it to the airport in record time (only hit two red lights, had the parking shuttle all to ourselves, had TSA pre-check for security) and made the flight.  Spent the next two hours coming down from the adrenaline rush.  

Once we landed in LA, got our rental car, headed down to Orange County and spent the day making three different visits to family and friends.  Got to Laguna Beach about 8pm and we are kapooped.  But happy to be safely here.