The Vacation Part 1: The Arrival

It all started with me being out of uniform. What's that you say? You didn't know there was a uniform for vacation travel? Oh yes, especially when you travel during the week, first flight out of the day. You see, that's when most of your business travelers are out and about and there is a specific male uniform that you wear. Starting at the bottom, brown or black shoes to go with khaki pants (gray pants are acceptable if they are light gray). Moving along you should wear a blue shirt, freshly ironed. Color blue is the choice of the wearer. Over the shirt, dark blue sports coat. Yellow tie optional. I forgot to wear my sports coat.

It was a pretty amazing sight there at the airport that morning. There must have been hundreds of them, all walking around with their carry-ons and brief cases. They all matched. Most of them carried a styrofoam cup of coffee and had the Wall Street Journal tucked under one arm. Those in lower management had USA Today under their arm. Salesmen had either Sports Illustrated or a copy of the local paper.

We boarded the plane and crawled into our seats. Coach. Oh yes, how fondly I remember coach from my last flight. You know, the seat on the plane in coach is actually smaller than the seats in the waiting area at the gate. The ones in the waiting area probably recline further too.

Nothing eventful happened to us though. There was a pug in the row behind us. Never heard a peep out of it. We spent the 4 hours just reading and dozing and playing video games. At one point CC borrowed my PDA to listen to some music but that's it.

And so we reached LA. Exiting the gate in LA is quite a bit like walking into a shopping mall. Apparently that's how they've chosen to decorate the airport there, at least at the level where the gates are. Must make people feel more comfortable before they fly. It's just another trip to the mall, no big deal.

Anyway, out of the gate, through the airport to grab our one suitcase and out to wait for the shuttle. Our rental car agency operates out of the Radisson hotel by the airport so we hopped the shuttle to the hotel and picked up our car. That's it right there, a PT Cruiser with the touring package. I have no idea what's included in the touring package but I do know that it was pretty comfortable and got great gas mileage. Over the course of our whole vacation we only used up 3/4 of a tank.

We arrived pretty early in the day so we had quite a bit of time to kill before anyone expected us. Tuesday night we were staying with CC's grand aunt Lola Baby somewhere in the suburbs but we weren't expected until later. So what to do with the free time? First we had lunch. Our flight didn't offer lunch to those of us stuck in cattle class. Best we could do was a snack box for a few bucks. So we drove around the airport area until we came across a Boston Market and had lunch.

We then decided that since I hadn't seen the beach from the ground in YEARS, we'd drive towards the ocean and see if we could find our way to the beach. At the time, our GPS had yet to figure out just where we were so we did all this by map. Not bad when you consider that I've never been to LA before and CC hadn't driven there.

Anyway, we found ourselves at Venice Beach. You've seen it on TV, it's a notoriously weird place that's supposed to be filled with all sorts of colorful characters, assorted beach bunnies, muscle men, etc.

I can say for certain that it was filled with colorful characters. Granted there weren't as many of them as you see on TV but I took that to be because we arrived early and on a Tuesday. And while we did see a few surfers out there, the place was pretty much free of beach bunnies and muscle men. I guess they import them for special occasions or something. Or maybe they're only available on the weekends.

All that aside, it was a very nice beach and we enjoyed walking in the surf and feeling the sand between our toes. At one point I wandered out a little TOO far though and the water went a LITTLE deeper than I had planned. Not that it really mattered. By the time we got back to the car I was pretty much dry anyway. We were hoping to make it back later in the week but we just ran out of time. No big deal though. I'm sure Venice Beach will be around a while.

Then we hit the highway. You know how they always show scenes of LA traffic on TV? You know how it's always REALLY bad? You know what? They aren't just doing that for TV. LA traffic is HORRIBLE. We left the beach early, around 2 or so and by 2:30 we were stuck in traffic. On the plus side, I have to hand it to them, traffic was actually MOVING but still, it's been a LONG time since I had to share the road with that many other people.

About an hour or so later we managed to reach the suburbs and get to where we were staying. It was a great house up in the hills. Pool, hot tub, you name it, they had it. Not that we had time for any of that of course. It was very nice of them to let us stay though and it did save us a bit on hotel expenses and food and so forth. And given the prices of everything along the way, trust me, any time you can cut costs on a vacation like this it's good :-)

I noticed something kinda funny though during our stay. You know that show J.A.G.? It used to run on CBS a while back and now they show it on USA in the mornings. Well, apparently that show is in CC's blood because her family out there in LA watches it too. I figure given the different personalities, taste in TV and movies, different locations, it HAS to be something in the blood :-)

After dinner and chatting it was off to bed for us. We'd had a busy day and another busy day was in store for us. Tuesday we arrived in LA but Wednesday we were going to Disneyland!