Little Traveler

This is the tale of our trip to California (which will probably take several posts).

Originally we had been thinking about going out to Ohio, but Peter and Karen (my brother and his wife) weren't sure if they'd be able to make it, so we decided to congregate in California instead. They live in Torrance, south of Los Angeles.

A couple of days before the trip I started telling Kate that we were going to ride on an airplane and go to California. She had no idea what California was, but she was excited about it. She kept mentioning it at random moments, like when she was in her high chair and I asked her if she wanted anything else, and she said, "No! I need to get down and go to California!"

We left on Monday and came back on Saturday. Traveling with a child certainly complicates things. Kate was convinced there were "games" in the airport (where she got that idea, I sure don't know) and she was quite put out that we wouldn't let her go look for them while we were waiting in line to check our luggage. Then when we were almost up to the counter, all of Alaska Airlines' computers went down. We put Kate's car seat down on the floor, had her sit in it, and pulled out one of our strategically-prepared toys. How will it be with two kids? Hoooo boy.

On both flights we ended up with seats that were near but not actually next to each other, but we were able to get people to trade with us. On the way out we were right in front of the galley area and right behind the wing, and the only window by us was a bit farther forward, so Kate had to sit on my lap and lean way forward to see out the window. She thought it was very cool to see the little buildings and roads on the ground, and the geometric shapes of the farmlands. I mentioned to Doug that I hoped we got better seats on way back so Kate could see out the window more easily. We did, but right after take off she curled up and went to sleep with her head on my lap, and slept almost the entire way. All that excitement is tiring!

My mom and dad flew out from Ohio with Kirsten and Betsey. My sister Barb and her husband Kyle, who live in Utah, had been up in Solvang visiting Kyle's grandmother, so they drove down for the week. The last time we had everyone all together was two years ago for my parents' fortieth anniversary.

We stayed at a Clarion Inn in Carson (we got four rooms for everybody). The shower head was about at my nose level, which I suppose is convenient if you've been swimming and want to rinse off without getting your hair wet, but not so great if you do want to wash your hair. When I saw it I thought, "Barb and Kyle are going to be hating this!" (They're the tall ones.) Doug also noticed that both knobs were marked C. I told him it was C for cold and C for caliente.

I think Kate got a kick out of the hotel room. We got to watch a lot of Discovery Channel, and I flew home with the Boom-de-ah-da commercial stuck in my head.