Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Well, the bags are packed and repacked and packed once again. We're up at the crack of dawn to only shower, dress and wait. Luke stopped by to give us a hug and the first installment on his ring payments. Every little bit helps. Charles and Frances Bennett are bringing us to the airport and running a little late. But we arrive in plenty of time along with our nervousness. It is a beautiful, sunny, late October day with low humidity and cool temperatures - a perfect day for a trip. Although we could see our breath this morning, Wil decides on shorts. Go figure! We have plenty of time at the Baton Rouge airport to catch our flight to Dallas and then on to Los Angeles. Bob Duncan, already in L.A. calls to see what time we're arriving as he has tickets to the Ellen show. Too bad we can't change our flights as we arrive 10 minutes before the show tapes. Guess I'll have to come back at another time for my chance to see her. So we sit and wait and wonder what it is that we've forgotten.
We had uneventful flights: first to Dallas. There were very few clouds and hardly any turbulence. It's one of those airports where the plane seems to take longer to get to the terminal once you're on the ground than the whole flight in the air took. We passed over bridges and what looked like a freeway - all riding on the airplane on the ground. It's like that dream I have where we get on the plane and then drive (not fly) to our destination taking forever to get there. We never do in the dream.
We decided we needed some lunch since there's not much food being given on the planes anymore. We checked out the Food Court in our terminal and decided on a place that served submarine-type sandwiches - Fruittatta's or something like that. Strange name for a place that didn't sell any fruit that we could see. I ordered my sandwich and asked that it be put on another kind of bread with no mayonaisse. Well! You'd think I'd asked for rat poison. "No deviation from the menu!" You can only get the sandwiches as described - nothing more, nothing less. I think it was because they couldn't speak English (Farsi was my guess) and they could look at the picture on the menu board and make that particular sandwich. It was OK but not what I really wanted.
Now off to board a very full flight to L.A. I worried that we wouldn't be able to take off as the woman in front of us was very large - so large in fact that she told the woman in her aisle that she had purchased two seats. I've never heard anyone admit that before but we were all glad and I think the woman sitting next to her was particularly glad since they didn't squeeze anyone else in with them. Anyway, we had some cloud cover, no turbulence and a good flight. I wrote a couple of Demetrius Does stories and here we are landing in Los Angeles already.
Oh yeah, one more thing about domestic flights: they charge for everything these days - $2 for headphones (and only their's work); $4 for a snack sack (peanuts, raisins, a beef stick and a cookie-yuck); $5 for a pillow and blanket; $4 to $8 for alcoholic beverages. They do still serve complimentary coffee, juice, soft drinks and water but I wonder how much longer they will do that. I have visions of people coming on board with picnic baskets and coolers and eventually live chickens and pigs!
We arrived, collected our luggage and set out for the shuttle to the Radisson where we met a lovely and very good looking young Australian family: father, mother, teenage son and pre-teen daughter. All blond, blue-eyed, tall, tan and extremely handsome. They had a ton of luggage and must have been very wealthy. When I heard the accent, I asked if they were going or coming and they said they were going back home. They were on the last leg of a four week tour of the USA having been to Las Vegas, Memphis, Nashville, Orlando, Key West, New York City and now three more days in Los Angeles before heading back to Sydney. I told them of our upcoming trip and Father wondered why in the world we'd go to Hobart - "Nuthin much there!". They were staying at the Radisson like us so I gave them one of my cards and told them if they were ever in the US again, we'd love to host them for a tour of Louisiana. They thanked us and said they'd consider it. I would've liked to talk to them more to know how they could have afforded such a long trip doing it all on their own, staying in hotels everyday, eating out all the time, renting a car and driving cross country and paying for admissions to all the places they'd gone. To say nothing of the disagreements I would think they'd have on travelling with the kids. They were either very well off, spending an inheritance or will be paying for this trip until their grandchildren are grown. We did have a lovely conversation but never saw them again.
We checked into our room which was not too impressive according to Wil. I think it's fine. It's close to the airport but no airport noise. We called Bob and Gayle who have been here a week already and didn't get any answer. I'm thinking they're still at the Ellen Show getting all kinds of freebies. We left a message and will catch up with them later for dinner. So we turned on the TV to catch up on things - nothing much going on in the world - that would be good news for us on an international flight tomorrow night. Made a few calls while we still have cellphone service: neither Luke nor Ben had any results from their doctor's appointments; Lori and Irena aren't worried about their respective surgeries. So Wil napped and I knitted til Bob called. They picked us up at the front doors and were happy to see us. They've had a great time seeing all the sights here. We tried to go to one of the restaurants Bob had picked but after driving quite a way to get there we found it closed. We decided to go to the first place that looked good since we were all pretty hungry and none of us have any aversion to eating pretty much anything. That first place turned out to be a Mexican restaurant called El Coyote and it was wonderful - the absolutely best green corn tamales I've ever had in my life! Of course, they were the first green corn tamales I've ever had so I had nothing to compare them to but they were delicious, nonetheless! The rest of the food was great too including the Margaritas which were nice and cold and best of all, cheap! El Coyote claimed to be one of the first Mexican restaurants in Los Angeles and a popular one at that. It was decorated lavishly for El Muerte Dio - Day of the Dead - a ghoulish Mexican holiday seemingly combining Halloween costuming and mock funerals. I tend toward the bizarre and I like the little skeleton and ghost figures dressed as doctors, lawyers, kids and adults. At any rate, the restaurant was really cool. We got back around 10 and I fell fast asleep in a Margarita haze not waking once until 5 a.m. to pee. Then back for more sleep since we have a really, really long day coming up tomorrow!

10/18/2006

AUSTRALIA: HERE WE COME!!!!! It's 6 days before we leave and all plans are finalized: lists made, documents secured, presents gotten, clothes bought and ready to be packed. We're going on a Friendship Force exchange. We'll be staying in people's homes - some we know, some we've corresponded with. They've told us a little about themselves but we'd like to take some pictures of our home, area and family. "Brag" books are the way to go and they are great but this one is giving me fits due to digital cameras and waiting until the last minute to do this. I'm having trouble making prints of the things I want in the book so I guess I'll just make a photo CD and we'll look at it on our laptop. Plus, I know when it comes to packing, everything I want to take isn't going to fit. The flight will be a long one with both my sister, Lori and mother in law, Irena having surgery while we're in the air. Hope all goes well with them. And Ben is having an MRI on his knee while Luke sees the doctor about his shoulder. It'll all have to wait until we get there.

Hopefully, this will be where I can transcribe my diary from our recent trip Down Under. We took over 2000 pictures and more than 3 hours of video on our three week trek with the Friendship Force of Baton Rouge. I kept an extensive diary the whole time we were gone telling all the places we saw, the people we met and the things we did. It will take quite some time to get it all written down here and even more time for you to read it. Please be patient with me.