Day Five (Tuesday) - 0500 Wake Up...

 .....annnnnd cancelled.

Due to wind and fog our balloon ride was cancelled.

So after waking up at 0500 to check the balloon hotline, we were back in bed and fast asleep at 0502. No time to be disappointed, when there is sleep to be had.

Once we had dragged our carcasses out of bed we managed to rebook another flight with a different company for the next day.  The original company was fully booked, but as luck would have it, that would work in our favour, more about that tomorrow.

So, for plan B, another road trip.

We jumped in the car and headed for Sonoma, a really pretty town about an hour from Napa.  It was a great drive and a nice way to seem more of the area.

We think Lyle (Harvey) may have a side hustle going on!

Here is Sonoma City Hall - a bit different to the council offices back home.

It would have been an awesome experience to go to the movies here, but it was closed on the day we were there.

This servo caught our attention on the way into town. Not sure the moody teenage girls were that happy being papped.

After some lunch at a bakery we headed back to Napa.

Here we are waiting for our expensive bread rolls...

Not exactly sure how we ended up here, but we did, OK!

Day Four (Monday) - Hello Outlet Shopping and another trip to Walmart

Rule #1 - Ryan has a two hour window period when on a shopping expedition before the attention, patience and commitment to the greater good wains.

I am not sure if old age hitting 40 has changed things, as he managed to stretch out things a little longer.  So much so that we had to visit Walmart to buy another bag.

As we always seem to do, we became well acquainted with the hotel laundromat.  After two loads of washing and having to get new jeans dried in a cool dryer to ensure they didn't shrink we now had a whole lot more clothing to pick from.

We also attempted to play tennis.  OK so I attempted to play tennis while Ryan was kept busy lookin for the stray balls that were it over the fence into neighboring properties. I am pleased he got a bit of a run around.

Time for another nap.

No real photo action today - so here is one of our new best friend, the washing machine..

Early night tonight, as tomorrow is one of Ryan's birthday presents.... a hot air balloon ride over the Napa Valley.

Day Three (Sunday - local time) - Downtown Napa

 Not much to report today - just looking around Napa.  "Downtown" is very pretty with most of the architecture from the 1800's.

We were still a bit jetlagged, so naps were essential along with a trip to Walmart....just because.

We found a good Mexican hangout in Napa and filled our bellies with our favourite food.... we were craving vegetables too.

One thing we noticed really quickly, the level of service has dropped a bit and the cost of things here has skyrocketed.  Think... Aussie prices using US currency, so tacos are more expensive here than back at home!

 

Day Two: Off to Oakland, Vallejo and Napa

Welcome to LAX (again), add some Easter chaos, with a dash off a bunch of people who, like us, have not flown for a while and have absolutely no clue (maybe not us).

Stepping out of the cab at Terminal 2, there was a queue a mile long for people wanting curb side check in.  Lucky our somewhat jetlagged intuition kicked in and we broke through the wall of people wanting to check in their luggage on the curb to find a bank of kiosks for the self-check in.  Voila, bag tags - printed, boarding passes - printed, and after a 10 minute wait in the bag drop queue we were all done. The lady who checked our credentials and baggage weight seemed relieved that we had our act together and wished us well for the next part of our adventure (it was clear the circus had rolled into town and many people had packed their brains in their baggage).  The next part of the adventure....TSA.  Actually that was as expected and in no time were we waiting in a very crowded terminal for our flight having an over priced breakfast.

We found some seats out of the way, so out of the way that we missed our boarding call.  

There was an early boarding as we were to be bussed to the aircraft....  there is nothing like hearing your name called out over the loud speakers.

We both broke the land-speed record getting to the gate, I think we may have got the gold medal for hurdling the boarding gate lane ropes too.

An airside bus ride around LAX is always fun, and within a few minutes we joined the rest of the masked up people on our baby jet.

This is the view from our plane looking at another baby plane.

As usual Ryan was asleep before engine start (that is the reason he is never, ever, ever, ever allowed to have the window seat, ever.  Unlike the pissy little princess on the previous flight, Ryan slept the whole way and woke up as we were on a rather bumpy descent into OAK.

For me, the nerves were beginning to hit - In an hour or two I was about to meet some of Ryan's family (from Lyle's side) - Aunty Shirley, Uncle Wally, Heather, Suzy and Liz.  

But first - the drive, on the other side of the road in a part of the US that we had never been before.

Luckily Clyde kept things calm and we arrived in Vallejo in one piece to a very warm welcome.  It was really lovely to meet the other side of the family.  Ryan had not seen them since 1991.

After spending some time at Aunty Shirley and Uncle Wally's lovely home we headed up the road for about 45 minutes to our hotel in Napa - the Silverado Resort & Spa.

  

Later that day (once the fully booked hotel had found our “lost” reservation, and had to upgrade us to a suite) we had a late lunch with the cuzzies at a good spot in Napa Valley.

RWO40 - It’s been a while…time for another adventure overseas!

Well here we are, on the road again. Ok not so much the road, but the runway and then a road trip. After a rather long break (thanks COVID!) the passports have been dusted off and we prepare to head to the USA for Ryan’s birthday. Not just any birthday, but his 40th. #oldfart.

It has been a while since we have travelled long-haul so a little more preparation was required with pre-flight COVID tests, various declarations and additional documentation checks at the airport. Nothing beats wearing a face mask for 14 hours, not only the recirculation of aircraft cabin air but also your own breath, plus a dash of nappy fumes (keep reading)...  Tasty! 

Not a bad view for a low circuit over Brisbane city.

We jumped online at -80 hours to departure to score better seats in cattle class (yep, there is an 80 hour rule where the high value seats are released for the cheap asses).  Feeling quite clever with having grabbed the 2nd row of economy.....until we boarded..... the front row of economy is where the bassinets are......

Annnnnd welcome into the picture the two year old.  The two year old who we assumed may get a little tired quickly and have a weee lil nap.  Also enter from stage right the mother and mother-in-law who appeared not to be the seasoned travelers one may expect with an infant. One may expect to have a number of toys or activities to keep the little #$%&ing brat princess busy for 14 hours.  Nope. Just one doll.  Yep that was going to do the trick.  Luckily there were some empty seats adjacent to the trio.  Yet still, after spreading their crap out over five seats across two rows plus a bassinet the little gem of a darling still needed a harpoon gun laced with heavy tranquillizers to bring it down.  I am pleased to report that success was achieved (the infant fell asleep without any harpooning necessary) at top of descent, just as the Californian coastline came into sight. Great timing! We were met with an impressive view of downtown LA and the Hollywood hills in the distance just before the Dunlops smoked up as the gently kissed the pavement at LAX.

Note to self - homeward bound seats will be no where near the bassinet section of the Airbus.

With all of that aside the flight was OK.  Not the usual service, smaller food portions but a number of refreshment offerings throughout the flight.  The NZ based crew were really attentive and we managed to watch a few movies and the usual inflight entertainment stuff.

As you could imagine we were thanking our lucky stars that we had booked a room at the Westin for our arrival and a post-flight nap was well deserved followed by a quick trip to Denny's to remind ourselves of the stunning American cuisine.

The jetlag bug bit a little harder than expected, so to counter that we had some pool deck time to get the Vitamin D up too.

Some good rest was achieved which was really important as we were readying ourselves to take on LAX again the next day for our non-stop-Embraer E175-jet-service-to-Oakland (during the Easter holiday weekend).

Time to fly.... and eat solids

Ry has progressed well and is now slowly eating solids and can hold things in (at both ends).

We are sitting in TBIT at LAX awaiting to be called for a (hopeful) seat change up to the pointy end of the plane. All good if not as we are thankful to be getting a seat anyway (which is not standby).

On the way to LAX we went the long way to fill in time and had a little walk along the beach at Santa Monica.

Then just outside LAX there is an In’n’Out burger joint, which is renown for its view. That put a smile on my dial! Yep these babies were super close! The burger was pretty good to. Ryan enjoyed the sprite!

Well that is it for another #chapottovacay. There is nothing more awesome than experiencing the world of travel with my partner in crime!

Planning is now underway for the next adventure!

Thanks America and Mexico, you’ve been swell.

Now for the waiting game before we jump aboard ‘St Kilda Beach’.

Waiting game over...

Getting Ryan some sunshine

Well, after the eventful night of bathroom visits, we risked taking a drive (and not being in close proximity of a bathroom).

To put a smile on his dial, and to tick off a bucket list item for Ryan, we headed to Torrance. Means nothing right, yeah I know.

Ok so we visited the high school there. Still nothing, yep me too.

Ok so this high school was the filming location for Beverly Hills 90210 (Beverly Hills High) and was the school that Buffy (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) went to. It was also the location for Not Another Teen Movie. So there you go. It was great to see a smile on his face when we pulled up for a photo or 10.

Yep, it was cold!

Bring your weed to school.... but don’t you dare smoke tobacco!!

To top off the drive we continued on to Redondo Beach and enjoyed a lovely sunset. Nice part of town that we will need to visit again.

Breaky, and dinner.... again and again and again...

Oh dear. Well the fun didn’t end at midnight. Poor Ryan caught a bug (probably some kiddy germs) and came down with an awful tummy bug, with the food intake exiting quickly from both ends. Holy phark, what a way to loose the buffet belly. It went on for over 12 hours, so as you can imagine not much sleep was had. With the homeward flight only hours away we pulled the pin and delayed our journey home for a day.  We are weening him back into solids as we speak. Poor dear!

So to make up for it, I ate for both of us this morning! It was healthy, see there was OJ and blueberries stuffed into the pancakes!

The wonderful world of Disney

Things have been a little busy since we reached dry land.

Right after jumping off the ship (not literally) we picked up the rental car and headed for “the happiest place on earth” Disneyland.

What an awesome day and certainly an escape from any type of reality.

Having the park’s photographers take photos and send them to the Disney app was great, it saved phaffing around with cameras and phones.

They got a little creative with some of the shots, especially when they met Clyde!

During the day we were able to skip the lines on some attractions as we had bought a Fastpass! 

We also took a trip on the Mark VII Monorail. In hindsight Walt was quite a visionary with many aspects of Tomorrowland not being too far from today’s reality.

We were like two big kids for the day, and went to town on the teacups.... spinning them as fast as we could without seeing our breaky again. Let’s chat later about seeing breaky again...

Toward the end of the day we paid a visit to Mickey’s house. We want to live there!

Ryan caught up on some work in the home office while I took a nap.

Out the back of the mouse-house we trotted into his library and low and behold the lil man himself. It really felt like we were meeting the President. Actually MM running this place would be awesome as the other muppet is not too popular here (like duh!)

Ryan, meet Mickey. Mickey, meet Ryan...

And the two Cheshire cats!

The day was almost complete with a pyrotechnic and water show with all of the characters on barges along the Rivers of America.

Finally at midnight we bid Disneyland farewell :(

Back to where it all started...

Good morning Long Beach! 

Here we are back at the Carnival Terminal, time for breaky and then off to the ‘happiest place on earth’, no not the buffet (although some other passengers may have withdrawals for a day or two)... nope we are off to DISNEYLAND!

But first (following an orderly meal) we will join the craziness called disembarkation. Although it is only 0705 here we have an escape slot of around 1000.

It has been fun, not sure if the Carnival thing is for us but it was a nice break from reality and gave us the opportunity to see a dear friend and visit a new city.

Back soon with some Mickey action!

Puerto Vallarta

On Wednesday they hoisted the red and white flag as the Pilot jumped aboard and brought us through the small breakwater. 

We arrived for a 12 hour stop in Puerto Vallarta, another key reason for the cruise. After some tricky manoeuvres we tied up right on time.

Puerto Vallarta is a lot bigger than first thought and a local advised us to take the bus as it is quite a hike from the wharf.

For 15 pesos each we took a ride into “downtown” and also Old Town on a somewhat dodgy bus with blaring music, quite a fun experience on the cobbled roads.

On our way from the ship we stumbled across a tribute to Mr Potato Head. OK we really weren’t too sure what this was but it was photo worthy nonetheless.

There is quite a bit of abstract art around the place, with some really imitating reality...like this one where parents are worried about climbing kids...

... and this, the tribute to the buffet!

Clyde was impressed with how ‘earie’ the place was.

The locals appear to be very creative, who said you need a roof rack to transport a ladder by car?!?

We trotted about town for a few hours before taking the bus back to the port. The town certainly has a lot of character.

When we were hanging out down by the beach we spotted these crazy chaps on a totem pole,  no real fast way to get down if you wanted to.

The pelicans are a little crazy (and hungry), they were also enjoying a buffet of sorts, by dive bombing into the water for a fresh catch of fish.

But before leaving we made the most of the local cuisine!

It was an unexpected hot day and we returned to the ship to cool down before bidding farewell to this cool spot and setting sail for Los Angeles, but first - 2 more sea days at the buffet and watching the wildlife.. however this time not buffet related wild life, but rather the whales which are playing not far from the ship.